Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa M. Given, Professor of Information Sciences & Director, Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University

As artificial intelligence becomes mainstream, its infiltration into children’s lives is causing tremendous anxiety. The global panic around AI’s co-option of children’s play and cultures has manifested unpredictably.

Earlier this year, a Swiss comedian created a film trailer for an imagined remake of the beloved children’s story Heidi using the AI tool Gen-2.

Heidi’s more than 25 film and television retellings (including the most famous 1937 version starring Shirley Temple) are key to cultural archetypes of childhood innocence. The viral AI-generated version sparked headlines for being a godless abyss, nightmare fuel and absolutely soulless and detached from humanity.

This isn’t the first time AI has been used to re-imagine representations of childhood through the creation of cultural artefacts. Researchers trained a deep learning algorithm using children’s books by Dr Seuss, Maurice Sendak and others, with the resulting storybook images described as an apocalyptic nightmare and visions from hell.

When a technology worker used ChatGPT and Midjourney to create a children’s book, he received death threats.

M3GAN and AI dolls

One of the most successful horror films of 2022, M3GAN, depicts the disturbing results of a grieving girl’s friendship with an ultra-lifelike AI-powered doll.

A clip of M3GAN dancing (her face expressionless as her body emulates moves from youth dance trends on social media) went viral to an extent the director called “unbelievable.” M3GAN strikes a cultural chord, embodying our discomfort with how AI co-opts and twists children’s culture.

The Artifice Girl (2022) depicts an AI-generated nine-year-old designed to lure predators online, highlighting debates about AI ethics. Reviewer Sheila O’Malley compared this to Blade Runner (1982), asking:

If a memory is implanted into an android’s brain, a ‘personal’ memory of a childhood that never happened, then isn’t that memory a real thing to the android? The android can’t tell the difference. It feels real. At a certain point, what is or is not ‘real’ is irrelevant. This is when things get unsettling, and The Artifice Girl sits in that very unsettling place.

AI tools sit uncomfortably with our imaginings of childhood. The constellation of play, games, stories and toys that constitutes children’s social worlds is symbolic of innocence, naivety and freedom from the darkest burdens of adult life.

Childhood studies link mythologies of freedom and innocence to faith in humanity. When AI tools pervert children’s culture, they spark our deepest fears about AI’s inhuman modes of intelligence.

AI’s ability to mimic human creators, while hallucinating and twisting reality, gives us reason to worry.

The long history of childhood techno-phobia

Cultural anxieties about AI’s infiltration of children’s culture continue a long history of pop cultural preoccupations with dangerous interactions between children and technologies that cannot be trusted.

With Poltergeist (1982), the world was enthralled by five-year-old Carol Anne’s haunting statement, “They’re here…” She was listening to poltergeists through the family’s television.

This resonated with parents concerned with children’s screen time, as well as video games, Dungeons and Dragons and Satanic ritual abuse. Carol Anne’s television fixation reflects the terrifying potential of technology to unsettle family life.

Read more:
M3gan review: an animatronic doll is out to destroy the nuclear family – much to fans’ delight

Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic Frankenstein, like M3GAN, depicts a young girl dangerously entranced by embodied technology. In its 1931 film adaptation, we see Frankenstein’s monster meeting seven-year-old Maria, who overcomes her initial shock, asks him to play and meets an untimely end.

Come Play (2020) depicts young Oliver who befriends a monster through an app, with deadly screen-time results. Where Poltergeist imagines consequences from too much television, Come Play echoes parents’ fears of losing their children to smartphones and gaming, such as Minecraft.

AI is a lightning rod for fear

M3GAN’s embodied AI reflects the current wave of concern. In May, AI companies made headlines when they linked AI to potential human extinction. While experts dismissed these claims, perceptions of AI as a significant threat echoes the horrors of AI depicted in film.

One example is 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), in which HAL 9000 takes control of the spaceship to protect the mission. Many other films depict out-of-control AI, including WestWorld (1973), Tron (1982), Terminator (1984), The Matrix (1999), I.Robot (2004), Moon (2009), Ex Machina (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). These films resonate today, as AI seems poised to replace human workers.

The idea we can create autonomous technologies that may eradicate humanity prompts what researchers call “moral panic”. This is contagious fear, amplified by the media, and fixated on looming threats to social stability. New media often give voice to youth, challenging norms and exacerbating generational divides, further contributing to recurring moral panics.

While filmmakers highlight AI’s potential threats, today’s tools struggle to generate coherent knitting patterns or recipes that aren’t poisonous. AI’s real threats to children include its ability to present misinformation in convincing ways and replicate social biases. The climate change impacts of AI are troubling, as is the lack of transparency and privacy concerns.

While we shouldn’t be swept up by moral panics, children’s use and understanding of AI should be addressed. UNICEF is embedding children’s rights into global AI policy and the World Economic Forum has released an AI for children toolkit.

While horror stories shed light on our anxieties about children’s technology use, and our imaginings of children’s play and culture, we don’t need to recoil in fear.

Lisa M. Given receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology.

Jessica Balanzategui receives funding from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.

Sarah Polkinghorne receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Is AI coming for our kids? Why the latest wave of pop-cultural tech anxiety should come as no surprise – https://theconversation.com/is-ai-coming-for-our-kids-why-the-latest-wave-of-pop-cultural-tech-anxiety-should-come-as-no-surprise-212869

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoffrey Roberts, Graduate Researcher, La Trobe University

For more than three decades, China has struggled to contain criticism of its human rights record. It faced a storm of outrage over the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and condemnation of its mass incarceration of Muslim Uyghurs in recent years. Each time, the Chinese government has had to deal with the diplomatic fallout of its own repression.

To deflect this criticism, Chinese diplomats and propagandists have promulgated a series of different claims.

On the one hand, they have tried to rally developing countries behind the idea that the “right to subsistence” trumps concerns over other human rights.

Other times, the government has justified its dictatorship as an expression of traditional Chinese “Confucian values”. These emphasise the importance of duty and social harmony over individual rights.

Now, however, the government has formed a coherent ideological strategy in response to this criticism. China is seeking not merely to resist but to dismantle a foundational idea of the post-Cold War international order – the universality of human rights.

Read more:
Explainer: who are the Uyghurs and why is the Chinese government detaining them?

A new approach cloaked in ‘democratic’ values

The government’s new strategy is called the “Global Civilisation Initiative”. And it’s become a major weapon in the Chinese party-state’s foreign propaganda arsenal.

The initiative was first announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in March. It complements two previously announced (and similarly named) diplomatic tools: the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative.

Together, these intentionally vague concepts are designed to expand China’s influence over international institutions and norms. They also advance Xi’s plan for the “great renewal of the Chinese nation”.

In announcing the Global Civilisation Initiative, Xi put forth lofty ideals about creating a “global network for inter-civilisational dialogue and cooperation” based on “common values of humanity”, such as “justice, democracy and freedom.”

Since then, these themes have been widely echoed by China’s media outlets and its foreign propagandists.

The truth, however, is the initiative represents a kind of modern-day tribute system in which an all-powerful China sits atop a hierarchy of like-minded states from the Global South.

In exchange for kowtowing to Beijing, the Chinese government offers developing countries lucrative trade and investment opportunities and the ability to emulate its authoritarian political model.

A selective approach to human rights

China’s new initiative could have significant repercussions for human rights.

First, in contrast to the respect for universal human rights in the liberal international order, China’s strategy calls for a cultural relativist approach based on each country’s “national conditions and unique features.”

In other words, there shouldn’t be a universal standard of human rights at all.

Instead, each country should develop human rights protections according to its own culture and traditions. As China’s former foreign minister, Qin Gang, said earlier this year:

There is no one-size-fits-all model in the protection of human rights.

This approach is problematic because it allows governments to apply international human rights standards selectively. It also offers a smokescreen for China’s own human rights violations.

A network of despots with similar views

A second way the Global Civilisation Initiative threatens human rights is by promoting greater collaboration between illiberal and authoritarian regimes.

In announcing the initiative, Xi made the point of differentiation between China and Western democracies clear:

The [Chinese Communist Party] will continue to safeguard international fairness and justice and promote world peace and stability. In advancing modernisation, China will neither tread the old path of colonisation and plunder, nor the crooked path taken by some countries to seek hegemony once they grow strong.

To promote this new strategy, Chinese officials have also been using benign-sounding language, such as “dialogue”, “cooperation” and “common prosperity”.

The Chinese state media even leaned on the ancient Silk Road as proof China has long “embodied the spirit of cooperation, mutual learning and mutual benefit”.

The aim is to build a broad coalition of countries seeking an alternative to the Western-led international order. In this new Chinese-led model, countries refrain from imposing their own values on one another. Interference in internal affairs is also strictly prohibited.

Read more:
How China is remaking the world in its vision

Again, this strategy can provide a smokescreen for China. It creates a global network of like-minded regimes whose diplomats can shield Beijing’s human rights abuses from scrutiny and criticism in international forums. They can also vote in support of Beijing’s resolutions at the United Nations.

In return, adhering to the Global Civilisation Initiative can provide greater space for illiberal governments to pursue their own goals and punish political opponents without fear of condemnation.

As a self-serving instrument for the projection of China’s power and influence, the success of the Global Civilisation Initiative will depend on its level of buy-in from developing states. In a world in which democracy and human rights are in decline and authoritarianism is on the rise, this may be readily forthcoming.

Geoffrey Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. China’s concerning new strategy on human rights: unite the world behind a ‘selective’ approach – https://theconversation.com/chinas-concerning-new-strategy-on-human-rights-unite-the-world-behind-a-selective-approach-212007

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arjuna Dibley, Head of Sustainable Finance Hub, The University of Melbourne

Last month, a significant victory for climate change was won behind closed doors. In 2020, Katta O’Donnell, then a 23-year-old student at the University of Melbourne, launched a world-leading class action lawsuit against the Commonwealth government.

O’Donnell alleged that she and other investors in Australian-issued bonds had been misled because the government failed to disclose how climate change might impact their investments.

Sovereign bonds allow governments to borrow money, from which, on top of taxes, they can fund expenditures and programs. Historically, investors consider sovereign bonds issued by stable economies such as Australia a safe bet.

Because our economy is large and our economic, political and legal institutions stable and mostly free from corruption, investors can be fairly certain that Australian governments will repay their debts.

This has created steady demand for Australian sovereign bonds, making them a reliable way for our governments to fund policy programs and respond to economic shocks. But O’Donnell’s lawsuit broadly questioned whether sovereign bonds were really safe for investors once the economic impacts of climate change were taken into account.

Her lawyers argued that the Commonwealth government should disclose the way climate change posed both “physical” and “transition” risks to the economy.

The first are financial risks that climate scientists say will impact Australia’s economy due to changes to the climate and the rise in extreme weather events. The second kind of risk emerges from changes in global demand for our fossil fuel exports.

Read more:
‘A wake-up call’: why this student is suing the government over the financial risks of climate change

O’Donnell’s lawyers also suggest that investors increasingly expect governments to try to manage their climate risks.

They point to the 2019 decision by Sweden’s Central Bank, Sveriges Rijksbank, to divest its holdings in Queensland and Western Australian bonds, because they are “not known for good climate work”, as an example of investors taking these risks seriously.

In March 2021 the Commonwealth sought to have the claim struck out, alleging it was not clear what risks should be disclosed.

At that time, few government bond prospectuses issued around the world referred to climate risks. However, Justice Murphy of the Federal Court decided to keep the legal action on foot because he saw an “informational asymmetry” between the government and investors regarding the nature of climate risks.

Following the election of the Albanese government, the Commonwealth decided not to contest the case in court, but to seek mediation.

Under the terms of the settlement, agreed on August 7 and to be approved by the court next month, the government will likely acknowledge on the Treasury website that climate change presents a risk to the country’s “economy, regions, industries, and communities”, and that there is uncertainty around the global transition to net zero emissions.

The government’s decision to disclose climate risks is no surprise. It is already taking steps to better understand and report on how climate change will affect the economy. Beyond taking policy measures to support the transition to a “net zero” economy, it has tasked Treasury with developing a national sustainable finance strategy.

It has also asked some large listed companies to analyse and disclose their climate-risk exposure, and is developing a legal framework – called a “taxonomy” – to better regulate sustainable finance.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s new governor, Michele Bullock, also said in a recent speech that the economic implications of climate change could affect the stability of the financial system.

The settlement is significant because, for the first time, an AAA-rated government will recognise climate change as a systemic risk that can affect the value of its bonds. Large sovereign investors and credit-rating agencies are already focusing on how climate change impacts a country’s ability to repay, and pricing this information into its loans.

All this is creating pressure for governments like ours to better understand and disclose climate risks when they borrow money.

But climate risk disclosure in sovereign bonds is not enough. Governments are qualitatively different entities to companies, from which these disclosure practices evolved.

Companies are more able than governments to rid themselves quickly of polluting assets, acquire new clean resources, or change the location of their operations. Investors can engage with companies on climate change through annual general meetings, but they struggle to influence governments on climate change (although some are trying to develop strategies for doing so).

Read more:
Better than net zero? Making the promised 1.2 million homes climate-friendly would transform construction in Australia

So while the recent case is a reminder for government issuers to consider how climate change will impact government bond repayment obligations, their challenge isn’t solved by better disclosure practices.

Nevertheless, Australian governments should continue their plans to better understand and disclose climate risks.

Moreover, under instruments such as Sustainability Linked Sovereign Bonds, governments can set climate-related performance targets, such as lowering carbon emissions by 10% by 2025. A government that does not meet these predetermined targets could be subject to an increase in its interest rate, or another penalty.

These instruments create an incentive for governments to achieve real emission reductions, which is the only activity that will ultimately address climate risk in the economy.

Arjuna Dibley is a Fellow at the Centre for Policy Development, a Board Member of Environmental Justice Australia and a Board Member of Carbon Plan.

– ref. How one student forced the government to admit the economic risks of climate change – https://theconversation.com/how-one-student-forced-the-government-to-admit-the-economic-risks-of-climate-change-212856

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meg Elkins, Senior Lecturer with School of Economics, Finance and Marketing and Behavioural Business Lab Member, RMIT University

Are you spending more and more time at work doing paperwork and filling in forms rather than the thing you were trained and hired for? Does this busy work often seem to resist rational purpose or questioning? Does it kill your productivity, initiative, motivation and, frankly, your self-worth and sanity?

If any of this sounds familiar, you are experiencing a classic dilemma of the 21st-century workplace. The unique and irreplaceable human qualities for which workers are increasingly hired tend to clash badly with the rules designed to reign in their worst excesses.

This insight is part of recent research that applies behavioural science to bureaucracy. But more than that, the research also suggests how to design rules for employees in a way that suits human psychology.

Although stories of creeping bureaucracy abound in many industries, evidence – and our own experience – suggests nowhere has the problem of red tape exploded as much as it has in universities.

Staff complain the time they have for teaching and research is being eaten up by filling in forms and writing reports of questionable value. But this gripe goes beyond the inefficiency of bureaucratic excess. Some rules demotivate because they are interpreted as patronising.

Read more:
Reform Australian universities by cutting their bureaucracies

Red tape in the academy

Academic bureaucracy is proliferating. At Yale University, for example, the number of managerial and professional staff has risen three times faster than the number of undergraduates since 2003. In Australia, leading research universities say the cost of complying with “unnecessary, redundant and duplicative regulation” has doubled since 2013.

Factors contributing to this, as identified by a 2022 UK government inquiry, include external demands for assurance that research is being done according to funding terms and conditions; risk-averse cultures leading to unnecessary hierarchies of approval; and growth in organisational size leading to more layers of management.

But while universities may be the most chronic examples, red tape is increasing in most workplaces. In the United States, the number of managers, supervisors and support staff has grown at more than twice the rate of other jobs since the 1980s – and the shift to hybrid and remote work is likely to compound this trend, as managers institute procedures to keep workers accountable.

As management experts Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini wrote in their 2020 book Humanocracy:

bureaucracy has been growing, not shrinking – a fact that is correlated, we believe, with the worrying slowdown in global productivity growth, a phenomenon that bodes for living standards and economic opportunity.

How did it come to this? And how can organisations with bloated bureaucracies go about cutting their red tape?

The perils of scientific management

While all organisations need processes to run, increasing bureaucracy has led to a proliferation of what economic anthropologist David Graeber pithily termed “bullshit jobs”:

Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul.

This helps explain why productivity is slowing and worker engagement is declining, with so many dissatisfied with their jobs.

One problem is many managers are trained in “scientific management,” which aims to improve efficiency by encouraging individuals not to problem-solve but to focus instead on performing simple, repetitive tasks as effectively as possible.

But people aren’t cogs in machines. Rather, they relate to their organisations on a personal level. Bureaucracy undermines that relationship.

Unnecessary bureaucracy signals to workers that they are not to be trusted. This suggests an uncaring and low-quality relationship, to which the natural human response is to want to quit the relationship – either overtly, by resigning, or quietly, by simply making less effort.

Beating the bureaucratic urge

The good news is there are ways to turn the tide of red tape.

“Defenders of the status quo will tell you that bureaucracy is the inevitable correlate of complexity,” write Hamel and Zanini, “but our evidence suggests otherwise.”

We know many examples of good practice from our own experience. Some universities have lean teams tasked with cutting red tape. In others, senior managers regularly visit the proverbial campfires. Some vice-chancellors retain teaching duties to stay in touch with changing demands. Leaders can glean much about the impact their middle managers’ rules have by engaging with the rank and file.

Canadian tech firm Shopify has created a meeting calculator to quantify the true cost of meetings. It also eliminated all reoccurring meetings with three or more people. As a result, the average Shopify employee now spends 14% less time meetings compared with this time last year. It serves as a reminder that time is money and there may be other ways to get things done.

Read more:
What is red tape and why is it a problem for small firms?

For any manager who is nervous about the prospect of giving workers more autonomy and fewer forms to fill in, here are some words of reassurance from Google’s former human resources chief, Lazlo Bock:

Give people slightly more trust, freedom, and authority than you are comfortable giving them. If you’re not nervous, you haven’t given them enough.

Research suggests managers who trust their employees elicit higher engagement and performance, and less burnout among their staff.

As Christian Hunt, former head of behavioural science at investment bank UBS, explains:

If we hire people because they’re smart, then it’s probably not a good idea to treat them in a manner that suggests we think the opposite.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Red tape can strangle your key asset as an employee: your motivation – https://theconversation.com/red-tape-can-strangle-your-key-asset-as-an-employee-your-motivation-209320

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joseph Lizier, Associate Professor of Complex Systems, University of Sydney

Getting in sync can be exhilarating when you’re dancing in rhythm with other people or clapping along in an audience. Fireflies too know the joy of synchronisation, timing their flashes together to create a larger display to attract mates.

Synchronisation is important at a more basic level in our bodies, too. Our heart cells all beat together (at least when things are going well), and synchronised electrical waves can help coordinate brain regions – but too much synchronisation of brain cells is what happens in an epileptic seizure.

Sync most often emerges spontaneously rather than through following the lead of some central timekeeper. How does this happen? What is it about a system that determines whether sync will emerge, and how strong it will be?

In new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we show how the strength of synchronisation in a network depends on the structure of the connections between its members – whether they be brain cells, fireflies, or groups of dancers.

The science of sync

Scientists originally became interested in sync to understand the inner workings of natural systems. We have also become interested in designing sync as a desired behaviour in human-made systems such as power grids (to keep them in phase).

Mathematicians can analyse sync by treating the individuals in the system as “coupled oscillators”. An oscillator is something that periodically repeats the same pattern of activity, like the sequence of steps in a repetitive dance, and coupled oscillators are ones that can influence each other’s behaviour.

It can be useful to measure whether a system of oscillators can synchronise their actions, and how strong that synchronisation would be. Strength of synchronisation means how well the sync can recover from disturbances.

Take a group dance, for example. A disturbance might be one person starting to get some steps wrong. The person might quickly recover by watching their friends, they might throw their friends off for a few steps before everyone recovers, or in the worst case it might just cause chaos.

Synced systems are strong but hard to unravel

Two factors make it difficult to determine how strong the synchronisation in a set of coupled oscillators could be.

First, it’s rare for a single oscillator to be in charge and telling everyone else what to do. In our dance example, that means there’s neither music nor lead dancers to set the tempo.

And second, usually each oscillator is only connected to a few others in the system. So each dancer can only see and react to a few others, and everyone is taking their cues from a completely different set of dancers.

This is the case in the brain, for example, where there is a complex network structure of connections between different regions.

Real complex systems like this, where there is no central guiding signal and oscillators are connected in a complex network, are very robust to damage and adaptable to change, and can more easily scale to different sizes.

Read more:
Electricity flow in the human brain can be predicted using the simple maths of networks, new study reveals

Stronger sync comes from more wandering walks

One drawback of such complicated systems is for scientists, as they are mathematically difficult to come to grips with. However, our new research has made a significant advance on this front.

We have shown how the network structure connecting a set of oscillators controls how well they can synchronise. The quality of sync depends on “walks” on a network, which are sequences of hops between connected oscillators or nodes.

Our maths examines what are called “paired walks”. If you start at one node and take two walks with randomly chosen next hops for a specific number of hops, the two walks might end up at the same node (these are convergent walks) or at different nodes (divergent walks).

We found that the more often paired walks on a network were convergent rather than divergent, the worse the synchronisation on the network would be.

When more paired walks are convergent, disturbances tend to be reinforced.

In our dancing example, one person making the wrong steps might lead some neighbours astray, who may then lead some of their neighbours astray and so on.

These chains of potential disturbances are like walks on the network. When those disturbances propagate through multiple neighbours and then converge on one person, that person is going to be much more likely to copy the out-of-sync moves than if only one of their neighbours was offbeat.

Social networks, power grids and beyond

So networks with many convergent walks are prone to poorer synchronisation. This is good news for the brain avoiding epilepsy, as its highly modular structure brings a high proportion of convergent walks.

We can see this reflected in the echo chamber phenomenon in social media. Tightly coupled subgroups reinforcing their own messages can synchronise themselves well, but may fall far out of step with the wider population.

Our results bring a new understanding to how synchronisation functions in different natural network structures. It opens new opportunities in terms of designing network structures or interventions on networks, either to aid synchronisation (in power grids, say) or to avoid synchronisation (say in the brain).

More widely, it represents a major step forward in our understanding of how the structure of complex networks affects their behaviour and capabilities.

Read more:
Synchrony with chaos – blinking lights of a firefly swarm embody in nature what mathematics predicted

Joseph Lizier received funding from the Australian Research Council which partially funded this research.

– ref. Fireflies, brain cells, dancers: new synchronisation research shows nature’s perfect timing is all about connections – https://theconversation.com/fireflies-brain-cells-dancers-new-synchronisation-research-shows-natures-perfect-timing-is-all-about-connections-212708

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Indigenous Studies and Director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University

On October 14, the voting public will be asked to vote “yes” or “no” on a proposed First Nations Voice to Parliament.

While the “yes” campaign has largely coalesced behind a single message, the “no” campaign is not a singular cohort. There are two sides to the “no” camp and they are very different.

Here’s what they are arguing and the different approaches they’ve taken when it comes to style and tone.

Read more:
For a lot of First Nations peoples, debates around the Voice to Parliament are not about a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’

The conservative ‘no’ campaign

One side of the “no” campaign comes from the right of politics, including prominent members of the Coalition. With the catch phrase, “If you don’t know, vote no”, this camp hopes to impel voters who are unsure about what it all means to just vote no instead of finding the information required.

Also in this camp are a number of Australians who believe Indigenous people are beneficiaries of special privileges. Some claim the referendum is about introducing “racial privilege” by establishing a system of government that gives Indigenous people influence over decisions made by the government.

“No” proponents have cited former Prime Minster Bob Hawke to make their case that we should all just be considered Australian and Indigenous people should not have a moral or legal right of recognition or special land rights. Hawke said in 1988:

In Australia, there is no hierarchy of descent […] there must be no privilege of origin. The commitment is all. The commitment to Australia is the one thing needful to be a true Australian.

One of the drivers behind this “no” campaign is Fair Australia, an arm of the lobbying group Advance Australia. Advance counts former Prime Minister Tony Abbott as an advisory member and is backed by wealthy donors.

These groups are harnessing social media to push their arguments, which mainly revolve around two themes: “dividing” the nation, and the lack of detail masking a hidden agenda.

This side of the “no” camp has faced many accusations of spreading misinformation.

Senior Indigenous politician Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is the Liberal party’s spokesperson against the Voice and the main Indigenous voice in the conservative “no” camp. Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton recently appointed Price as the new shadow minister for Indigenous Australians.

The Blak Sovereign ‘no’ campaign

The other side of the “no” campaign is completely different in that it professes to have the best interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at its core.

This camp is often framed as the progressive side of the “no” campaign, with independent Senator Lidia Thorpe its most prominent voice. Thorpe has referred to the Voice as a “powerless advisory body” that will do little to change the life circumstances of most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Instead, Thorpe supports other measures such as truth-telling and treaty.

Thorpe has said the Voice is just an easy way to fake any real progress for Indigenous people without any actual change.

She also points to the harm and divisiveness the Voice debate has caused, referring to it as a “destructive distraction”. The Voice debates have resulted in a significant rise of racism and hate speech targeting Indigenous people online.

While both sides are supporting a “no” vote, they are distinct in that one’s aim is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have more rights of self-determination, while one advocates for the status quo.

Where does this leave Indigenous people?

Voice proponents believe it will bring the promise of a new and enlightened Australia. But in reality, the government will be able to disregard the advice it brings to the parliament.

Arrernte writer Celeste Liddle captures how many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are feeling about the referendum:

I feel stuck with a choice between systems I do not trust and the fear of giving in to rabid racists.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are tired of dealing with the misinformation, lies, hatred and racism the referendum debate is fuelling in society. I was asked by a non-Indigenous person if it is true Aboriginal people will get double Centrelink payments and be “given” land for free.

These falsehoods are repeatedly being spread because they hit at the heart of the racism we see in Australia – that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will be entitled to something other Australians are not, and we are undeserving.

Many have questioned Australia’s ability to engage in a debate over the Voice without descending into racist stereotypes and contempt for Indigenous people.

My own research has pointed to high levels of ongoing racism online and in workplaces.

Australians need to be fully informed and not swayed by misinformation fuelled by racism. We are told there is much at stake, but we do not yet know if the Voice will bring any substantial change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This campaign will, however, tell us who we are as a people, and what we value.

Bronwyn Carlson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. There are two sides to the ‘no’ campaign on the Voice. Who are they and why are they opposed to it? – https://theconversation.com/there-are-two-sides-to-the-no-campaign-on-the-voice-who-are-they-and-why-are-they-opposed-to-it-212362

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Reema Harrison, Associate Professor, Macquarie University

Australians are living longer than ever. But these extra years of life come with higher rates of long-term and complex conditions and greater health care needs.

The government wants to improve Australians’ access to primary care services. These services would usually be delivered by a GP. But as part of this change, a new review is exploring how other health professionals could expand their current scope of work to meet growing needs.

Nurses make up more than 50% of the health workforce and have untapped and under-used skills that would ease the skills gap in our health system. Within this group, nurse practitioners have advanced training and the potential to deliver more services than they’re currently allowed – without the oversight of a GP.

How will access to primary care change?

One of the big changes is that from October 2023, some patients will be able to register with one GP or general practice under the MyMedicare scheme. Those who are registered will start to have access to extra funded services like longer telehealth appointments.

The first patients who will get access to these benefits are people with multiple health conditions and/or additional social needs. Having one doctor who knows them, and their history, can connect them more seamlessly with all of the different health professionals and services. This saves patients and carers time, money and effort.

Read more:
Should you register with a GP? What is MyMedicare and how might it change the care you get?

For MyMedicare to work, Australia will need more health professionals with the right skills available in cities, regional towns and in rural and remote locations.

Currently, Australia is set to have a shortfall of 10,600 GPs by 2032. This represents a serious problem. While steps are being taken to grow the GP workforce, this takes time. And with a worldwide health workforce shortage, it will not be easy.

Australia will need to find other solutions. One option is to look to nurses to take on tasks for which they are suitably skilled but have historically been undertaken by doctors.

How nurses can help

In the United Kingdom, the United States, The Netherlands and Canada, advanced nursing – where nurses have postgraduate education and training to take on more specialised tasks and roles – has been relied on for years.

At the most advanced level of nursing, a nurse practitioner is a trained registered nurse who provides advanced nursing care either independently and autonomously, or with a doctor. Nurse practitioners can assess and diagnose health problems, order and interpret diagnostic tests, prescribe medicines, refer patients to other health professionals and even admit them to hospitals.

Nurse practitioners have been practising in Australia since 2000, starting in emergency care, with more than 1,400 practising in total in Australia by 2019. However, unlike other countries, Australian nurse practitioners must work in collaboration with a doctor. If they were to practise more independently, nurse practitioners could expand health-care access for thousands of Australians, including those living in rural and remote areas.

A recent NSW Health report presented a framework for specialised rural nurse practitioners that shows how care might be provided to focus on local community needs. For people living with a disability, or chronic and complex conditions, nurse practitioners can provide services in their communities, such as diagnosis, treatment plans, dialysis and make referrals to a specialist, including via telehealth. This could reduce the need for long-distance travel or a long wait time to access a GP.

Don’t we have a shortage of nurses?

It is true, nurses are leaving the workforce in the thousands. One fifth of nurses in Australia intend to leave nursing in the next 12 months. Keeping them requires better working conditions.

But it’s not just about reducing burnout, stress and workloads. Nurses want career development, the opportunity to extend their scope of practice with advanced training, and for these complex care skills to be recognised and used.

Access to opportunities for career development and progression is a key driver of nurse retention.

Read more:
How do you fix general practice? More GPs won’t be enough. Here’s what to do

Why haven’t nurse practitioners already solved the workforce crisis?

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses who have additional postgraduate education and clinical training in their speciality area.

Nurse practitioners are currently required to work in collaboration with a doctor to deliver care, which limits the extent to which they can resolve the workforce gaps we face. A nurse practitioner can prescribe medications, for example, but must do so with oversight via a sign-off from a doctor.

The federal government’s nurse practitioner workforce plan aims to remove barriers to patients accessing a nurse practitioner. The plan is looking at whether nurse practitioners should provide Medicare-funded services, create additional nurse-led care items and remove the requirement for them to collaborate with doctors in delivering care.

The federal government’s current proposals may therefore see nurse practitioners working completely independently, in a similar way to that overseas.

But despite evidence showing nurse practitioners provide safe health care, the proposal has been met with concern from some doctors that increased independence may risk patient safety and lead to more fragmented care. They also argue it would be unfair for patients who can’t see a doctor and who must see a nurse practitioner instead.

What should happen next?

Delivering better quality primary health care in Australia ultimately means we need to make better use of our health services and align it with our changing population needs.

To achieve this, we will need to grow our nurse practitioner workforce and use them more effectively. Enabling nurse practitioners to use all their skills independently might also help to stem the loss of nursing workforce.

But expanding the scope of any profession must be done in a way that improves collaboration, team-based working and patient-centred care. Health care is safest and most effective when health professionals work together – and with patients – to make decisions about care. So it’s important for the plan to include incentives that make collaboration more likely between nurse practitioners and doctors.

Read more:
Pharmacists should be able to work with GPs to prescribe medicines for long-term conditions

Reema Harrison receives funding from National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Research Futures Fund, Cancer Institute NSW, Australian Research Council, Medibank Better Health Fund, and NSW Health.

Laurel Mimmo works for a NSW Health organisation and is a member of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, the Health Services Union and the Australian College of Nursing. She does not currently receive funding from any organisation.

– ref. It can be tough getting a GP appointment. Nurse practitioners could take some of the load – https://theconversation.com/it-can-be-tough-getting-a-gp-appointment-nurse-practitioners-could-take-some-of-the-load-212620

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trivess Moore, Senior Lecturer, School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University

Climate change and energy costs mean we need to rethink how we design and build our homes. The updated National Construction Code has lifted the required energy performance of new housing from 6 stars to 7 stars (10 stars being the best). Windows are an obvious focus for improving the energy efficiency of Australian homes.

On hot days, most of the heat that gets into our homes is through the windows. On cold days, windows account for almost half the heat loss. High-performance insulating windows have been installed in Australian homes at a fraction of the rates for New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom.

In our newly published report, we found the local window industry can produce the high-performance windows we need for thermally efficient homes. These homes will cost less to heat and cool, with lower greenhouse gas emissions.

But the industry is complex, with several obstacles to greater uptake of these windows. We identified a range of government policies and industry actions that could help drive change.

Read more:
7-star housing is a step towards zero carbon – but there’s much more to do, starting with existing homes

How much difference do windows make?

Single-glazed windows are common in Australian housing. Heat travels easily through these windows so they are a thermal weak spot.

In Australian homes, up to 87% of heat gain in summer and 40% of heat loss in winter is through the windows. This makes it harder to maintain a comfortable temperature inside.

Around 40% of household energy use in the average Australian home is for heating and cooling. The result is high power bills.

High-performance windows can solve this problem

Better windows are available. Double-glazed and triple-glazed windows offer much better performance, reducing the need to use energy for heating and cooling. In some climate zones, they’re one of the most cost-effective investments in energy efficiency you can make.

These windows have insulating layer(s) of air between the glass panes. Other elements can also improve performance. These include thermal breaks (an insulating barrier that reduces heat flow through the window frame) and films that can be applied to the panes.

These approaches can be used in new window units, or with retrofit options such as secondary glazing, which can be cheaper than replacing the whole window unit. It involves installing a glazed panel in a frame inside an existing window. This can be a great solution for apartments as it might not require owners corporation approval.

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High-performance windows offer many benefits beyond greater thermal comfort. These include better physical and mental health as a result of homes no longer being too hot or too cold, improved control of ventilation and natural light, and reduced noise from outdoors.

Australia is trailing far behind other countries in installing high-performance windows. Just over 10% of windows in new housing in Australia are high-performance – versus around 80% in the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand.

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Scaling up use of high-performance windows

We explored the window and residential building industry in Victoria on behalf of Sustainability Victoria. Our aim was to understand the industry and its readiness to scale up the manufacture, sale and installation of high-performance windows. We also wanted to understand what support might be needed to achieve this transition.

The people we spoke to, drawn from across the sector, said they are ready to scale up once demand is there. They clearly said there isn’t any technological barrier to doing this.

The time from ordering to receiving windows has increased in recent years as part of wider supply-chain issues. We were told this was almost resolved. However, a rapid scaling up of demand for high-performance windows could create short-term supply challenges.

The builders we spoke to identified some issues around understanding the various window products, such as the relative benefits of different frame materials. For example, uPVC and timber frames typically conduct less heat than aluminium. However, a thermal break can greatly improve aluminium frame performance.

They also noted that high-performance windows cost more. This can be a challenge in an industry already struggling to provide housing at affordable prices.

In addition, high-performance windows are heavier. Extra equipment could be needed to install them.

Read more:
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How can policy help improve uptake?

We found the industry is complex. A range of measures will likely be needed to encourage the uptake and delivery of more high-performance windows. Our research proposes the following interventions:

• regulation – further improve regulations to nudge use of high-performance windows, which could include setting minimum performance requirements for windows as New Zealand has done

• education – better educate builders and consumers with easy-to-understand, transparent information to bust myths about high-performance windows and encourage people to consider their wider benefits

• finance – there is a need to reduce capital costs (economies of scale will help) and improve access to government support, which could include rebates for home owners, similar to those for rooftop solar systems

• quality assurance – the range of high-performance window options means we need to ensure key intermediaries like energy assessors provide well-informed advice. Support tools such as the Window Energy Rating Scheme can help with decision-making. There is also a need to ensure quality installation practices.

Read more:
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Windows for the future

Given the key role of windows in housing quality, performance and emissions, installing high-performance windows needs to become business as usual. In many other countries, double-or-triple-glazed windows are now standard. If we don’t do the same, we will lock households into lower-quality, poorly performing housing for decades.

Making high-performance windows standard building practice in Australia is achievable. However, some support for the window industry, builders and households will be needed.

Trivess Moore has received funding from various organisations including the Australian Research Council, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Victorian Government and various industry partners. He is a trustee of the Fuel Poverty Research Network. This article derives from research funded through a contract between Sustainability Victoria and RMIT University.

Lisa de Kleyn has worked on projects that received funding from various organisations including the Australian Research Council and Victorian Government. This article derives from research funded through a contract between Sustainability Victoria and RMIT University.

Tom Simko has worked on projects that received funding from the Victorian Government. This article derives from research funded through a contract between Sustainability Victoria and RMIT University.

– ref. On hot days, up to 87% of heat gain in our homes is through windows. On cold days, it’s 40% of heat loss. Here’s how we can fix that – https://theconversation.com/on-hot-days-up-to-87-of-heat-gain-in-our-homes-is-through-windows-on-cold-days-its-40-of-heat-loss-heres-how-we-can-fix-that-212117

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Gilmore, Lecturer in Engineering Design, UNSW Sydney

Farmers often pride themselves on their self-reliance. When you live far from the cities, it makes sense to do as much as possible yourself. Australia’s sheer size has meant many remote farms have long been off grid as it’s often simply too expensive to get a power connection. But for those still on the grid, there are now new options.

As solar gets cheaper, more and more farms are aiming to become self-reliant in power. But until now, getting fully off the grid has had a sticking point – solar intermittency. Solar power might be cheaper than ever, but if you don’t have storage or backup, you’re still reliant on the grid when the sun doesn’t shine.

Batteries are a compelling solution. But they might not offer a full day’s backup and come with concerns about fire risk and waste.

Generators offer reliable backup. But they too have downsides – they have to be resupplied and produce harmful emissions.

For farmers, there’s now another option: connect one of your dams to a river – or link two dams together – to create a small pumped hydro plant to store electricity from solar to use at night. The water in your dams could offer yet another form of self-reliance.

Our new research has identified over 30,000 rural sites where micro pumped hydro could work. A typical site could produce two kilowatts of power and store 30 kilowatt hours of energy – enough to run a typical home in South Australia for 40 hours.

Massive to micro? Yes, pumped hydro can work on farms

Pumped hydro is essentially turning hydroelectric power into a battery as well.

Take two reservoirs, where one is higher than the other. When you have extra solar power, you store it. How? By using the energy to pump water uphill to the top reservoir. When you need power later on, you release water down to the lower reservoir and produce electricity with a turbine.

At large scale, these plants are an established and efficient way to store energy, though they can suffer from cost blowouts, as in the Snowy 2.0 scheme. Queensland’s government is planning massive pumped hydro schemes to act as batteries.

Until recently, small-scale pumped hydro hasn’t made much economic sense.

But the steadily falling cost of solar means the numbers have changed. It’s now more cost effective to get larger arrays. And that opens up opportunities to find ways to store surplus electricity generated in daytime.

For farmers, another opportunity is the ability to use existing dams and reduce pumped hydro construction costs.

If it’s cheaper, it’s much more viable. Early research on solar-powered irrigation systems using pumped hydro suggests the payback period for this kind of energy storage could be up to four times shorter than for batteries.

What’s the catch? As you might have guessed, this solution depends on the size of existing farm dams and rivers, and topography of the land.

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The steeper the slope between the two water bodies, the more useful the system will be as energy storage. To get the most out of these systems means finding the sites with the most potential value. And it’s likely the solution won’t work for farms on flat ground – you need a drop of at least 20 metres.

You’re probably wondering how this stacks up financially. We compared a micro pumped hydro system with 42.6kWh capacity and able to discharge 3.6kW to a commercial lithium-ion battery, the Tesla Powerwall, able to store 13.5kWh and discharge 5.0kW.

We found micro pumped hydro storage was 30% cheaper than a battery if locally generated solar was regularly needed overnight – such as to power a 24/7 irrigation system.

Australia has thousands of potential sites

Our research is the first continent-wide assessment of potential pumped hydro farm dam sites.

How did we figure out how many sites would suit micro pumped hydro? The magic of maths. We used algorithms from graph theory, as these are used to model networks, and set them loose on a 2021 survey of 1.7 million Australian farm dams. We didn’t want to raise people’s hopes if their dams weren’t suitable, so we set the minimum capacity at 24kWh (similar to a typical home battery after efficiency losses) and with a minimum slope of 17%, to make it price competitive with a battery.

That’s how we came up with our figure of 30,000 promising sites, including dam-to-dam and dam-to-river sites. Dam-to-river sites are a good option if you have a dam at a reasonable elevation above a river – you can pump water uphill from the river and return it later to make power.

What’s next for this approach?

You can make this approach more efficient by using new all-in-one hardware, such as combined turbines and water pumps, as well as integrating it with smart irrigation management.

To be clear, this solution won’t work for every landholder. If you’re farming wheat on flat plains, you’re unlikely to have the slope needed to make it work.

If you’re considering getting storage to go off grid, it’s essential to consider the pros and cons of each technology and how it would suit your local conditions.

For instance, if you’re in a drought-prone area with limited groundwater, it may not make sense to install pumped hydro. During a drought, you may well need the water on the farm. Our research assumes 70% of the water in the dams is available for use, which does not account for droughts or irrigation needs.

But for some landholders, this may be the missing part of the puzzle. Wind and solar installation is skyrocketing [around the world]. This, in turn, is boosting demand for cost-effective energy storage. Given there are 30,000 suitable farm dams in Australia alone, it’s likely this technology could play a valuable role around the world – especially for farmers in remote areas or where grid connection is too expensive.

Read more:
Batteries of gravity and water: we found 1,500 new pumped hydro sites next to existing reservoirs

Study co-author Martino E. Malerba is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (project ID DE220100752).

Martino Malerba is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (project ID DE220100752)

Thomas Britz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Farmers are famously self-reliant. Why not use farm dams as mini-hydro plants? – https://theconversation.com/farmers-are-famously-self-reliant-why-not-use-farm-dams-as-mini-hydro-plants-212374

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Volodymyr Bilotkach, Associate Professor, Purdue University

Fining Qantas A$600 million if it is found to have knowingly sold so-called “ghost flights” would be fair, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The commission this week launched action in the Federal Court alleging Qantas engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by selling tickets on flights that had already been cancelled, and not informing passengers of cancellations in a timely manner.

The regulator’s charges against the airline, which last month reported a record $2.47 billion profit, have precipitated the early exit of longtime chief executive Alan Joyce, who quit this week two months ahead of schedule. This court challenge will certainly add to the workload of his successor, Vanessa Hudson.

Read more:
Qantas chief Alan Joyce quits early, amid customer fury at the airline

Qantas has acknowledged that service standards might have slipped as the airline was struggling to recover after the pandemic.

The nature of the oversights that led to the airline’s errors will determine the airline’s liability – both to the consumer regulator and to individual claims for compensation.

Importantly, the case also points to the need for greater regulatory protection of the airline’s passengers, in line with other jurisdictions.

How did Qantas get in this mess?

The short answer, most likely, is that the carrier did not handle flight cancellations promptly due to the sheer volume of work and labour shortages as it sought to resume operations following the end of pandemic restrictions.

The consumer regulator’s allegations relate specifically to May and June 2022. Australia lifted many of its COVID-related travel restrictions in March, and travellers entering the country after July 6 were not required to show proof of vaccination. The airline was trying to bring its planes back into service and hire or retrain its employees, and generally was struggling to get back to more or less normal operations.

In its statement, the competition watchdog noted the carrier cancelled nearly one in four flights scheduled during that period; and for two out of three cancelled flights it either continued selling tickets or failed to inform the passengers –sometimes for extended periods of time – or both.

Flight cancellations are a normal part of an airline’s operations. However, the “usual” cancellation rate is less than 2%, less than a tenth of what Qantas experienced in May and June 2022. What is unusual is that Qantas did not immediately remove cancelled flights from its booking system. This is something I have never heard of.

One also suspects the airline has had enough “practice” with schedule adjustment during the pandemic to know better. There are clearly gaps in the carrier’s management. It has lessons to learn from this debacle.

Read more:
Qantas can’t charge these prices forever: the challenge ahead for new chief Vanessa Hudson

What is Qantas’ liability?

The question of the extent of the airline’s liability is not straightforward. Obviously, a business willingly selling a product or service it has no intention to deliver is at fault, and has to face consequences.

At the same time, a business selling a product that has defects it is unaware of, despite doing its best to prevent such defects from occurring, will face certain costs (such as those associated with a product recall) but may be spared sanctions.

The onus will be on Qantas to demonstrate it made an honest mistake rather than a lapse of judgement. But considering the scale of the problem, the airline faces a very difficult task here.

Individual claims pending

As well as a potential fine, Qantas should brace for a flood of claims from individual passengers who bought a ticket for an already cancelled flight or were not informed in a timely manner.

Timing will be of the essence here. If a passenger incurred expenses assuming the flight was operating when it had already been cancelled, such as making a non-refundable hotel reservation, there is a case to request compensation for such expenses.

Otherwise, the standard policy will apply: the airline is not usually responsible for any non-refundable and uninsured expenses a passenger incurs prior to the flight cancellation.

Closing the regulatory gap

The regulator should, however, also take a closer look at the existing air passenger rights in Australia.

Currently, the consumer is entitled to replacement or refund if an airline does not provide services “in a reasonable time” – that is, in the event of a lengthy delay or a flight cancellation. However, the definition of “reasonable time” and the specifics of the compensation policies are left to the airlines.

Read more:
Will it be greener pastures for Qantas as Alan Joyce takes off?

In other parts of the world, actions have been or are being taken to strengthen customer protection. For instance, in the European Union, lengthy delays that are the airlines’ fault lead to the carriers paying out cash compensation as well as the cost of accommodation and meals.

Similar regulations were proposed in the United States earlier this year.

Perhaps, if stronger consumer protection rules had been in place in Australia in 2022, Qantas would have managed the aftermath of flight cancellations more diligently.

Volodymyr Bilotkach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Booking customers on flights that were cancelled – how could Qantas do that? – https://theconversation.com/booking-customers-on-flights-that-were-cancelled-how-could-qantas-do-that-212793

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Laurenceson, Director and Professor, Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI), University of Technology Sydney

There are few more reliable narratives in the business and financial press than, “If China sneezes, Australia will catch a cold”.

Such simple stories are likely part of the explanation why polling by the Australia-China Relations Institute finds three-quarters of Australians think our economy is “too reliant on China”.

In the middle of last year, indicators emerged that China’s large, and iron-ore-hungry, property construction sector was struggling. This meant, according to an analysis published by News.com.au, that “disaster loomed” for the local economy.

Late in 2022, there were hopes the Chinese economy more broadly might get a much-needed bounce after Beijing abandoned its harsh COVID-19 lockdown measures.

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But with that recovery beginning to splutter in the second quarter of this year, we are now again being warned that a recession in China “could easily spark a recession in Australia”.

Last month, Treasurer Jim Chalmers appeared to add his official imprimatur to such assessments, calling China’s slowdown one of the “biggest challenges” facing the Australian economy.

He repeated this again on Tuesday when asked on ABC Radio National whether he thought there would be more interest rate rises:

… We already know that the combination of those two things, China and interest rates, is slowing our economy quite considerably.

Yet what most reporting and commentary misses is the basic fact there has never been a straightforward, one-to-one relationship between the ups and downs of economic activity in China and those in Australia.

Rarely mentioned amid the current doom and gloom about China’s economy is that in the year to June, Australia’s goods exports there hit a record high of A$192 billion. Since the end of last year, China’s share of Australia’s goods exports has jumped from 30.2% to 39.4%.

Might the coming year be different?

Perhaps. But there is little hard evidence suggesting it will be.

Resources giant BHP says the impact on China’s demand for iron ore from weak housing construction is being offset by “solid demand from infrastructure, power machinery, autos and shipping”. Independent commodity analysts concur.

Not surprisingly, then, iron ore future contracts put the price in September next year at more or less the same level as now.

Meanwhile, China’s slowing economy hasn’t stopped massive new areas of trade opening. In the seven months to July, China imported nearly US$10 billion worth of Australian unprocessed lithium. During the same period in 2020, it was just US$327 million.

Post-pandemic, Australia-China services trade is also roaring back.

Visitor numbers start to climb

In June, there were 37,330 short-term visitor arrivals from China. That’s still well down on 80,680 in pre-pandemic June 2019, but quadruple the flow before Beijing relaxed its border controls last December.

In July, visa applications from would-be Chinese international students in Australia’s higher education sector stood at 8,379. This exceeded the 7,660 submitted in the same month in 2019.

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The present resilience in bilateral trade is not unusual.

China’s growth rate has been grinding down since 2018. Yet between 2018 and 2022, Australia’s exports there rose by more than one-third.

Going back even further, China’s growth rate suddenly halved when it was hit by the effects of the Global Financial Crisis. Chinese demand for Australian commodity exports, however, surged.

The perception is not necessarily the reality

While all this data might appear at odds with common perceptions, it’s not news to those who haven’t resorted to lazy analysis.

The University of Western Australia’s Nic Groenewold modelled the effect of a permanent three percentage-point fall in Chinese GDP growth. He found this would reduce Australia’s GDP growth rate by between 0.15 and 0.57 percentage points depending on the time frame, summarising that:

While not trivial, given Australia’s current growth rate, these estimates are hardly enough to justify prophecies of doom.

Using a different modelling technique, the Reserve Bank of Australia estimated the implications of a sudden four percentage-point fall in Chinese growth.

In the most plausible scenario, it found greater short-run effects, albeit still unlikely to be recession-inducing. And after three years, Australia’s GDP was just 0.3% lower than if the shock had not occurred.

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Aside from bilateral trade resilience, there are other factors that limit spillovers from China to Australia too.

An economic slump in the United States spills over to hurt Australia mostly via investment connections. In 2022, Australia’s stock of investment in the US stood at A$1.1 trillion. This channel is much weaker in the case of China, where Australia’s investment stock is only $62.5 billion.

Australia’s safety net

The Australian economy also has inbuilt “automatic stabilisers”. If there ever was a collapse in Chinese demand for Australian iron ore, the Australian dollar would immediately depreciate, improving export competitiveness across the board.

There would still be some painful costs, of course, such as households having to pay more for imported goods, and government revenues taking a hit.

Finally, some perspective is in order. It’s certainly true that China is, by far, Australia’s most important export market. Still, the value of these exports amount to around 7.5% of GDP. Compare that with domestic sources of demand such as household consumption that stand at 50% of GDP.

The key takeaway? If China sneezes, whatever the headlines might blare, don’t be surprised if Australia only gets a mild case of the sniffles.

James Laurenceson ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Australia’s not likely to catch a cold, just a sniffle from China’s economic downturn – https://theconversation.com/australias-not-likely-to-catch-a-cold-just-a-sniffle-from-chinas-economic-downturn-212777

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warwick Frost, Professor of Tourism, Heritage and the Media, La Trobe University

This year’s Burning Man Festival in Nevada has been washed out and 70,000 attendees are stuck in the mud. Summer rains have hit its desert location and, as we regularly find in the Australian Outback, when fine and dusty desert soils get wet, they are like glue. Transport becomes near impossible.

A large number of people are temporarily stuck at Burning Man and there are issues with emergency vehicle access. While it’s been reported a man has died at the festival, organisers say it was “unrelated to the weather”. However, the problem is not flooding, but rather mud and not being able to move.

This has created a media storm – but it is not a natural disaster of the severity of the recent fires in Hawaii and Greece, or the floods in Spain.

What is Burning Man?

Burning Man has been held at the same time of year in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert since 1991. It has generally been at a hot and dry period, perfect for an outdoor festival. Normally the venue is uninhabited, but for just over a week, up to 70,000 people come for this anarchic alternative arts and self-expression festival, forming a temporary camping city.

The culmination of the festival is the burning of a giant effigy of a man, a highlight based on a romanticised view of what our ancestors did in pre-historic times. A great experience, unless it rains.

Rain stops play

There is a long history of outdoor festivals being hit by summer rains. It rained at Woodstock in 1969 and images of hippies playing in the mud are part of the legend of that iconic counterculture festival.

It rained at Melbourne’s Sunbury Festival in 1975 and the lower-than-anticipated ticket sales almost sent its organisers broke. In 2022, rain also led to the cancellation of the Splendour in the Grass Festival at Byron Bay.

Going back to 1839, the Eglinton Tournament in Scotland, a medieval re-enactment event, was cancelled due to rain, with its grandstand collapsing and a reported 100,000 spectators stranded. For much of the 19th century, Eglinton was a byword for an event disaster.

Summer rain is a problem due to its unpredictability, intensity and the rapid runoff from baked soils. Festival organisers can make contingency plans to mitigate its effects, though they cannot avoid it and they cannot just wish it away. Outdoor festivals work well in natural or rural areas, but these need to be chosen and planned carefully, with the potential for storms taken into account.

Burning Man is situated on a playa (or dried lake), which provides an excellent flat surface for transport, motorhomes, displays and performances.

Global warming will lead to more frequent and more intense summer storms. The potential for weather chaos is only getting greater.

Other problems for festivals

The major problem for most festivals is not external shocks like rain, but rather deficiencies in management. The limited research we have indicates that many festivals have a short life-span and there is a high rate of failure.

Running annually for over 30 years, Burning Man is an exception. It is far more common to see short runs of a few years, one-offs, announced festivals that do not occur, re-branding of troubled events or changed venues and even cities.

For example, White Night in Melbourne drew enormous crowds, but only ran from 2013 to 2019. Paradoxically, the festival was too successful and overcrowding put too much of a strain on the city.

Common issues when events go wrong are unreal expectations, contradictory objectives, overzealous financial predictions, poor planning, lack of experience and the hubris of organisers. Staging an anarchic and edgy festival should not mean chaotic organisation, but it sometimes does.

Fyre Festival, held in the Bahamas in 2017, is perhaps the most infamous example, popularised by a Netflix documentary series.

Promoted as an up-market music festival through influencers on social media, attendees complained that the promised luxury accommodation and gourmet cuisine were not up to standard and most of the announced performers pulled out. In the end, legal action was successfully taken against the organisers.

Similar examples, albeit on a smaller scale, have occurred in Australia and throughout the world.

The nature of events

It is perhaps not widely appreciated that events like festivals have a very different nature to other forms of economic activity. Manufacturing, for instance, involves a focus on standardisation and testing. The products – whether cars or chocolate bars – have to conform to the same specifications and perform or taste the same. There is a need for certainty. This output is produced and checked and then sold and consumed at a later date.

Read more:
Not burning, drowning: why outdoor festivals like Burning Man are reeling from extreme weather

In contrast, festivals are produced and consumed at the same time. Standardisation may be aimed for, but it cannot be guaranteed.

There are many “wildcard” factors that occur at the same time as production and consumption. These include the weather, the behaviour and attitude of the crowd, the variable quality of the performers and the staff, volunteers and other inputs in the production process. When it all comes together successfully, it makes for a magical festival.

Good management can help in this process and organisers need to be ready for contingencies. Rain at Burning Man was not a “freak” weather event – it needed to be planned for.

Warwick Frost is Adjunct Professor of Tourism, Heritage and the Media at La Trobe University, Melbourne and Visiting Professor at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He is Co-Editor of the Journal of Heritage Tourism and Foundation Co-Editor of the Routledge Advances in Events Research book series.

– ref. From Burning Man to Woodstock to Fyre Festival: what turns a festival into a disaster? – https://theconversation.com/from-burning-man-to-woodstock-to-fyre-festival-what-turns-a-festival-into-a-disaster-212859

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation’s politics team.

In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn discuss the latest national accounts and Jim Chalmers’ announcement that Grattan Institute CEO Danielle Wood will take over as head of the Productivity Commission. The appointment came as a surprise, after Chris Barrett, chosen for the position only recently, decided he had a better offer – he will become head of the Victorian Treasury.

They also canvass the QANTAS saga, which has seen its now former CEO Alan Joyce step down earlier than scheduled. The news came amid public anger over its poor customer service, and after the national carrier was taken to court by the consumer watchdog for selling more than 8000 tickets on flights already cancelled.

And finally, they discuss Anthony Albanese’s trip to Indonesia for the ASEAN summit, followed by a visit to the Philippines, before he attends the G20 meeting in India.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Word from The Hill: Danielle Wood to head Productivity Commission, Alan Joyce bows to public anger, PM jets off again – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-danielle-wood-to-head-productivity-commission-alan-joyce-bows-to-public-anger-pm-jets-off-again-212980

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annette Greenhow, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Bond University

A Senate committee has tabled a long-awaited, 187-page report on the growing problem of concussions in sport, with 13 recommendations for action.

Senator Janet Rice, the committee chair, urged the government to take the report very seriously and quickly move to implement the recommendations. She said now is the time for the “Commonwealth to step up”.

In the past few years, we’ve heard countless heartbreaking stories about Australian sports figures who have struggled with their mental health after suffering head injuries on the field.

Some have posthumously been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a form of dementia.

Our sports leagues have begun paying greater attention to the risks associated with concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries. The primary focus has been on the elite level, with some recent action at the community level.

It has been nearly 30 years since the National Health and Medical Research Council, the government’s public health agency, called for precautionary action on this issue. However, governments have been slow to act on repeated calls for a national strategy to what is fundamentally a public health concern.

So, will the government follow through now by implementing the Senate committee’s recommendations? And how will our sports leagues respond?

Conflicting approaches to concussions

The Senate committee received 92 submissions and heard from 84 witnesses from a wide range of backgrounds, including athletes, families, medical experts, the leaders of sports organisations and other experts. (I also presented evidence, based on my expertise in this field.)

Two conflicting narratives emerged from the evidence. On the one hand, athletes, families, health care professionals and other public interest groups expressed concern that the current approach on concussions and player safety was inadequate. They argued there are too many gaps in the system and, in some cases, that sports organisations are putting self interest above player health.

On the other hand, the Australian Institute of Sport and other sports-affiliated parties argued the current approach, which allows sports organisations to self-regulate when it comes to handling head injuries, is fit for purpose. They also said player health and wellbeing was a primary concern.

Read more:
Concussion risks aren’t limited to the AFL. We need urgent action to make sure our kids are safe, too

In some respects, the report carefully toed the line between the two sides. Several recommendations set out a greater role for the Commonwealth government to play, but did not provide the level of specificity some might have expected for such an urgent and pressing public health concern.

Lack of reliable data on head injuries

One of the main concerns in the report was the lack of reliable and accurate data on the prevalence of concussions in sport and our general level of understanding on the health risks.

To address the data issue, the inquiry recommended the government establish a national sports injury database as a matter of urgency. This is greatly needed not only to enact better injury prevention policies and programs, but also so families can make decisions on sports for their children.

Read more:
Australian researchers confirm world’s first case of dementia linked to repetitive brain trauma in a female athlete

The report further recommends requiring professional sporting codes to collect this data on concussions and share it with the new database. Currently, only some sporting codes share this information publicly.

On the research front, the report recommended the government establish a new independent body (or an entity within an existing body) that would be dedicated to research into the short- and long-term effects of concussions and repeated head trauma in sport, including CTE.

Many of those submitting evidence cited concerns over the lack of coordination and direction in the current approach to research. As the committee pointedly said,

There is clear evidence of a causal link between repeated head trauma and
concussions and subsequent neurodegenerative diseases such as CTE. While
important research questions remain regarding the degree of causation and the
nature of long-term impacts, these questions should not be used to undermine
the fundamental nature of that link.

‘High level of confusion’ on return-to-play rules

Other recommendations focus on how sporting codes should change their rules or policies to mitigate the risks of head injuries.

Here, the committee also called for a greater role by government and medical experts in developing return-to-play protocols (as in, the amount of time a player should sit out after a head injury before returning to the field), which could be adapted for use across sports.

Read more:
New study highlights the brain trauma risks for young athletes

This is an important point. The report cited concern over the “high level of confusion” over how much time a player should sit out, which comes from the disparate rules across sporting codes.

And the committee noted that even with return-to-play policies in effect, compliance and enforcement remained a problem. The report again cited a greater role for government in overseeing these protocols, though it doesn’t specify how.

If the goal is to achieve uniformity and compliance, then a practical issue to consider is whether the sports and their networks have the required resources and capabilities to achieve this. And is legislation required to empower government to monitor compliance?

Inadequate support for athletes

The final sections of the report deal with the current lack of financial support for players who suffer concussions, including:

• the exclusion of athletes from workers’ compensation schemes

• the absence of a national injury insurance scheme

• inadequate support provided by sporting organisations

• inadequate private insurance, and

• barriers to legal remedies for concussion and head trauma-related claims.

The report made clear much more could be done by sporting organisations to improve their duty of care to athletes. As a baseline, it “encourages” professional sports organisations to ensure their athletes have insurance coverage for head trauma and the removal of the exclusion of athletes from workers’ compensation regimes.

The goal here is to address the inequities in access to adequate support for professional athletes. But without crunching the numbers and doing a cost-benefit analysis across the various compensation options, it’s difficult to know whether athletes will be better off.

The lack of detail and concrete timeframes in the report make it difficult to predict what lies ahead. With sports revenue streams likely to be impacted due to the ban on sports gambling advertising, the sports organisations will be paying close attention to the costs of these recommendations.

Let’s hope the government adheres to its role as “neutral umpire” when it comes to the resistance it could now face in implementing the recommendations.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Annette Greenhow receives funding from the Government of Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and previously received funding from Australian Catholic University and the City of Gold Coast Ambassador Program. She is affiliated with the Australia and New Zealand Sports Law Association as a board member (views are her own). Annette provided a submission and evidence at the Senate Inquiry. Her PhD findings on the topic of regulating concussion in Australian sport form the basis of a forthcoming book on the topic due for publication in the coming months.

– ref. We are finally moving towards a national strategy on concussions in sport. Will the government and sports bodies now act? – https://theconversation.com/we-are-finally-moving-towards-a-national-strategy-on-concussions-in-sport-will-the-government-and-sports-bodies-now-act-212701

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jaana Dielenberg, University Fellow, Charles Darwin University

This week’s landmark report on the impact of invasive alien species revealed costs to the global economy exceeded US$423 billion (A$654 billion) a year in 2019. Costs have at least quadrupled every decade since 1970 and that trend is set to continue.

Prevention is better than a cure. Stopping pests and diseases arriving and establishing in Australia is not only better for the environment, it’s much cheaper too.

The biosecurity system is our front line against invasion. Species that pose a significant risk to agriculture have historically received more attention, but we also need to defend our borders against threats to nature.

Here we take a closer look at some pests and diseases we need to keep out at all costs, to protect our biodiversity.

Read more:
The true damage of invasive alien species was just revealed in a landmark report. Here’s how we must act

One of the biggest threats to biodiversity

Alien species are those deliberately or accidentally introduced to areas where they are not native. If they cause problems, we call them invasive.

Invasive alien species include weeds, feral animals, exotic pests and diseases.

Those that have already arrived have taken a huge toll. Introduced predators were largely responsible for most of Australia’s mammal extinctions. And introduced diseases have decimated our frogs.

Invasive species are pushing most (82%) of Australia’s 1,914 nationally listed threatened species closer to extinction.

Imagine if those invasive species had been kept out of Australia. Here are eight of the pests and diseases we really need to keep out.

Read more:
1.7 million foxes, 300 million native animals killed every year: now we know the damage foxes wreak

1. Giant African land snail

Giant African snails have a ferocious appetite. They feed on more than 500 species of plants including agricultural crops and eucalyptus trees. The shells of these giants can be 20cm long and females typically lay 1,200 eggs a year. Adult snails could sneak into shipping containers or machinery and their eggs could be transported in soil or goods. They are now present on Christmas Island.

2. Avian influenza

Avian influenza or bird-flu is a viral disease found in birds. Some strains can kill farmed poultry and susceptible wild birds. Such highly pathogenic strains are thought to have killed millions of wild birds globally in the past few years. The virus can also jump across to mammals, recently knocking off 3,500 sea lions Peru.

Migratory birds could bring the virus here but it could also be carried in imported birds and poultry products, including contaminated eggs, feathers, poultry feed and equipment. Our biosecurity system is responsible for surveillance and early detection, preparedness and management to protect our vulnerable wildlife. In California, preparation includes vaccinating endangered condors.

Read more:
Migrating birds could bring lethal avian flu to Australia’s vulnerable birds

3. New tramp ants

We’re already battling some species of tramp ants, but there’s more where that came from – there are at least 16 different species. So far six species including red imported fire ants have been detected, with efforts underway to contain or eradicate them at their incursion points. On Christmas Island, another tramp ant species (yellow crazy ants) formed “super colonies”, killing every animal in their path, including tens of millions of the island’s iconic red and robber crabs. Ants are easily transported to new areas in dirt, plants and cargo. Tramp ants threaten Australian ecosystems, agriculture and human health.

4. Bat white nose syndrome

White nose syndrome is a bat disease caused by a fungus. In less than 20 years it has killed more than five million bats across North America, causing local extinctions and reducing the beneficial services performed by bats such as eating harmful insects. The fungus could be introduced to Australian caves on the shoes, clothing and equipment of people who had previously visited caves in Europe or North America.

5. Crayfish plague

A highly infectious fungal disease, crayfish plague is the main cause of crayfish declines across Europe. It has the potential to devastate Australian freshwater crayfish populations. North American crayfish can be carriers of the disease and the illegal trade of crayfish, such as the dwarf Cajun crayfish for aquariums, also threatens to introduce the disease.

6. New myrtle rust strains

When a strain of myrtle rust arrived in Australia in 2010, it spread quickly along the east coast, infecting 358 different native plant species including eucalypts, bottle brushes and lilly pillies. It has caused major declines and local extinctions of many species. Other exotic myrtle rust strains occur outside Australia. These present serious threats to Australia’s natural environment and to commercial native forest plantations. Importing infected plant material is the main risk of introduction.

7. Savannah cats

Savannah cats are two to three times the size of domestic cats. In 2008 the federal government banned the importation of savannah cats. A scientific assessment found pet savannah cats had the potential to establish and roam across 97% of the country if they escaped or were released. They can take down prey twice as large as feral cats, so 90% of Australia’s native land mammals would be at risk. Demand for the species from the pet trade raises the risk of smuggling or illegal trade.

8. Black spined toad

The black spined toad is potentially more damaging than the cane toad because it could survive across a bigger region including in the colder parts of Australia. It would prey on native frogs and other small animals, be toxic to larger animals, and probably carry exotic parasites or disease. It is a common stowaway in shipping cargo.

Read more:
97% of Australians want more action to stop extinctions and 72% want extra spending on the environment

Prioritising nature

Australia’s biosecurity system has generally served our country well, but it is under constant and growing strain. Historically, the environment has also been the poor cousin of agriculture at the biosecurity table.

Preparedness and responses for environmental threats remain chronically underfunded, especially when compared to those developed for industry.

A well-resourced independent body focused on the prevention and early elimination of new environmental pests and diseases would be a major step toward achieving our global commitments to end extinction.

Read more:
Hear me out – we could use the varroa mite to wipe out feral honey bees, and help Australia’s environment

Jaana Dielenberg is based at The University of Melbourne and works for the Biodiversity Council. She is a member of Invertebrates Australia and the Ecological Society of Australia. She previously worked for the now ended Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program. She thanks James Trezise for his contribution to this article.

Patrick O’Connor receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Australian and State Governments. He is a councilor on the Biodiversity Council and affiliated with the Nature Conservation Society of South Australia and the Australian Landcare movement.

– ref. Australia’s least wanted – 8 alien species and diseases we must keep out of our island home – https://theconversation.com/australias-least-wanted-8-alien-species-and-diseases-we-must-keep-out-of-our-island-home-212850

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University

Australia’s economy grew a mere 0.4% in the June quarter according to figures released by the Bureau of Statistics today, a performance Treasurer Jim Chalmers describes as “steady in the face of unrelenting pressure”.

The lacklustre growth follows growth of 0.4% the previous quarter, and is a step down from the growth of 0.7% in the quarters that preceded it, presenting a stark reminder of the economic challenges caused by rising interest rates as the Reserve Bank attempts to reign in inflation.

If growth continued at that pace for another two quarters, the annual growth rate would barely reach 1.6%, an alarmingly low figure that. For many Australians it probably feels like a recession, because all of the growth was accounted for by population growth, meaning gross domestic product (GDP) per person fell by 0.3% in both March and the June quarters, in a so-called “per capita recession”.

The driving force behind this tepid growth is primarily weak household consumption which grew by only 0.1% in the quarter – far less than Australia’s population.

Households, grappling with the increased cost of essential expenses such as fuel and rent, have resorted to cutting down on savings.

In the three months to June Australia’s household saving ratio plummeted to 3.2%, its lowest rate in 15 years.

How is it possible to have both weak spending and weak saving at the same time?

The answer is that disposable (post tax) income fell by even more.

Real per capita disposable income fell by 2.1% in the June quarter.

Outside of pandemic lockdown years of 2020 and 2021, this was the biggest fall in disposable income per Australian since the 2009 global financial crisis.

The Bureau of Statistics says mortgage interest expenses have almost doubled over the past year as home building (“dwelling investment”) has slid by 0.2% in the quarter and 1.1% over the year.

In better news, business investment has shown resilience, climbing 0.6% in the quarter, and 3.4% over the year driven, driven in part by a rush of tradies attempting to upgrade their cars before a cut in the instant asset write-off limit came into effect on July 1.

Exports climbed 4.3% in the quarter, driven by “education exports” as international students returned.

Read more:
You don’t have to be an economist to know Australia is in a cost of living crisis. What are the signs and what needs to change?

Gross operating surpluses, a measure of company profits, fell by 8.6% in the quarter driven by a fall in commodity prices which drove down mining profits.

Pressing on profits were higher wage bills – which surged 9.9% outside of mining, reflecting both wage growth and employment growth, outstripping the 5.1% uptick in non-mining profits.

Lower commodity prices also drove another decline in Australia’s terms of trade which fell by 7.9%. The terms of trade measure the price of Australian’s exports relative to the price of imports, meaning that Australia is getting fewer imports for its exports – something that will inevitably feed into our standard of living.

This subdued economic growth is the primary reason the Reserve Bank decided to hold interest rates constant at its board meeting yesterday.

The bank is expecting economic growth to decelerate to an annual rate of only 0.9% by the end of the year, in large measure because of the series of 12 interest rate rises it has imposed since May last year.

One of the bank’s biggest concerns, and one of the government’s biggest concerns, is labour productivity (GDP per hour worked) which slid a further 2% in the quarter to be down 3.6% over the year.

The bank’s outgoing governor Philip Lowe says falling or weak productivity growth makes wage increases more likely to feed inflation, limiting his freedom to cut interest rates, a point he might address in his final speech as governor on Thursday, to be entitled Some Closing Remarks.

Boosting productivity – how much we produce for each hour we work – is important. Our standard of living and the pain we need to inflict to fight inflation will depend on it.

Isaac Gross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. We’re in a per capita recession as Chalmers says GDP ‘steady in the face of pressure’ – https://theconversation.com/were-in-a-per-capita-recession-as-chalmers-says-gdp-steady-in-the-face-of-pressure-212642

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Arrow, Professor of History, Macquarie University

The Whitlam government has a mythical status in the Australian popular imagination. While it lasted less than two full terms between December 1972 and November 1975, it has had an outsized cultural presence ever since.

This is not just because of Gough Whitlam’s transformative social democratic agenda, but because of the way his government ended: the dismissal remains one of the most shocking events in Australian political history.

Each year since, we have marked the anniversary with new stories, new angles, new details. The story has all the ingredients of high drama – indeed, the story was told in a rather ponderous television mini-series in 1983.

So almost 50 years on, what to make of a comedic musical retelling of these tumultuous events?

The Dismissal’s talented creators (Jay James-Moody, Blake Erickson and Laura Murphy) are neither Boomers who watched the dismissal from ringside seats or dewy-eyed Gen-Xers, but younger still.

For their generation, forged in a neoliberal world much harsher than the one that lifted up their parents and grandparents, the Whitlam policy agenda of free education, free healthcare and social democracy for all might seem like a distant, unattainable dream.

Crucially, the authors also don’t see the dismissal as a unique event. In their program notes, they argue the show is

the story of our political culture writ in bold, sung in harmony and danced in formation. Over, and over again.

So this show is not just a dramatisation of the events of 1975, it is also an attempt to understand our maddening political culture.

Read more:
Australian politics explainer: Gough Whitlam’s dismissal as prime minister

Self-referential and extremely funny

Norman Gunston (a superb Matthew Whittet) guides the audience through the story and sets the tone for the show. We begin with the famous moment on the Parliament House steps. Playing Gough, Justin Smith both sounds and looks like him – no mean feat.

The Dismissal is least effective when it is striving for sincerity: the early number Maintain your Rage left me concerned the show might be too earnest to be genuinely funny.

However, my anxieties were assuaged by a very clever romp through the post-war years of Liberal rule (from Menzies to Holt to Gorton to McMahon), sung by suburban housewives and their lawn-mowing husbands. It is self-referential and extremely funny and sets a high bar for the rest of the show. Murphy’s lyrics are wonderful throughout, but they are especially brilliant here.

After Whitlam’s election, his policy achievements are dealt with in a rapid-fire slideshow, which moves things along but lowers the stakes in what follows. The real subject of the drama is the unravelling of the Whitlam government from within, thanks to the shenanigans of Jim Cairns, Rex Connor and the loans affair, and the role played by Sir John Kerr, Malcolm Fraser and Sir Garfield Barwick in undermining him from the outside.

The cast are uniformly excellent. Peter Carroll is uproarious as a Mephistophelian Sir Garfield Barwick. Octavia Barron Martin manages to invest Sir John Kerr with a touch of pathos. Monique Sallé is a showstopping Tirath Khemlani, a befuddled Billy Snedden and her Queen Elizabeth II has more than a touch of Rocky Horror about her. Joe Kosky’s Jim Cairns is both pompous and ponderous, with brilliant comic timing.

Andrew Cutcliffe’s Malcolm Fraser is stiletto-sharp and a little bit kinky. His Private School Boys is a bump-and-grind showstopper that recalls Alexander Downer’s Freaky from Casey Benetto’s 2005 musical Keating!

The song is reprised later by Lady Anne Kerr, whose purring refrain that “you’re not a match for private school girls” is a reminder that this is a story of class, mobility and social striving.

Sharp, funny and astute

The show’s gender-inclusive casting draws our attention to the almost all-male world of politics in the 1970s and gives many of the female performers the opportunity to behave disgracefully (Georgie Bolton as Rex Connor is spectacularly, hilariously crude).

Margaret Whitlam (Brittanie Shipway) and Junie Morosi (Shannen Alyce Quan) are voices of reason and resolve. While both are terrific, their roles in the narrative constrain their range: Margaret’s number Crash Through or Crash is an example of the ways the sincere songs don’t have the power to hold an audience in the ways that the satirical numbers do. Stacey Thomsett has much more fun with the role of Lady Kerr, who she depicts as Lady Macbeth in a Carla Zampatti suit.

It’s all great fun, witty and sharply observed. Yet perhaps the weakest part of the show is the ending. While we all know how this story ended, the creators didn’t seem to know how to draw their story to a close.

But overall, The Dismissal is sharp, funny and astute. It’s also a rare thing: an accomplished new Australian musical. I think Gough himself, with his love of Australian arts and culture, would have quite enjoyed it.

The Dismissal: An Extremely Serious Musical Comedy is at the Seymour Centre, Sydney, until October 21.

Read more:
Where are the new Australian musicals? Waiting in the wings

Michelle Arrow receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is currently a Fellow at the Whitlam Institute.

– ref. ‘An extremely serious musical comedy’ about Whitlam? Yes. The Dismissal is great fun, witty and sharply observed – https://theconversation.com/an-extremely-serious-musical-comedy-about-whitlam-yes-the-dismissal-is-great-fun-witty-and-sharply-observed-212965

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Gilbert, Professor of Finance, Auckland University of Technology

There are few stores without an Afterpay logo displayed on the door, or that don’t offer Laybuy at their online checkout. And these schemes are particularly popular with younger consumers.

But what price might these buyers be paying for the conveniences of buy now, pay later? Our new research investigated how young New Zealand adults use debt. What we found suggests greater regulation of delayed payment schemes is needed.

The rapid growth of “buy now, pay later” in New Zealand over the past decade has been meteoric. These delayed payment options are expected to make up an estimated NZ$1.2 billion of retail purchases in 2023.

Relatively new, these delayed payment schemes allow a consumer to purchase a product then pay it off in equal instalments over a short period of time, typically six to eight weeks. If repayments are made on time, there is no cost to the consumer.

Importantly, these delayed payment options are not currently subject to the same credit checks or affordability criteria as other consumer debt.

Read more:
Buying gifts? Why ‘buy now, pay later’ could be a dangerous option for many holiday shoppers

And herein lies the problem. While people are essentially borrowing to pay for items, the delayed payment option is viewed differently from other debts by both users and under the law.

Through the course of our research, we surveyed 705 New Zealanders aged 18 to 34 and found one in five do not identify buy now, pay later as debt, with a further one in five not sure. And one in four were constantly repaying debt from delayed payment purchases.

Delayed payment is a problem for 1 in 5 young adults

Since its inception, buy now, pay later has been particularly popular with the 18-34-year-old age group. Young adults tend to have low or unstable incomes, putting them at higher risk of over-indebtedness – not being able to meet their essential living expenses and debt repayments.

More than 70% of our sample had tried delayed payment options. While nearly half our sample (43%) were using it wisely (rarely missing repayments and incurring fees or delaying use of their own cash), 20% were using it poorly.

Specifically, these users were:

• incurring late fees frequently, making delayed payment schemes an expensive form of debt

• prioritising their repayments above other essential spending, such as food or medical expenses

• and using other borrowing to repay their delayed payment purchases.

The final point is particularly concerning, as borrowing to repay debt is a balancing act at best, and a debt spiral at worst.

Read more:
Buy now pay later: how to protect consumers without regulating it out of existence

We also measured respondents’ general over-indebtedness. On average, those with a current delayed payment debt were more indebted than those without. We found those using these payment schemes badly were significantly more likely to have a higher over-indebtedness score.

Delayed payments appeared to be putting people under increased financial strain and compromised their overall financial wellbeing.

At the same time, credit cards and hire purchases didn’t significantly increase over-indebtedness. While both are similar to delayed payment options, these older forms of borrowing are subject to consumer finance law, suggesting protective regulation reduces their impact on problem debt.

Regulating delayed payment schemes

In New Zealand, consumers are protected from unsafe lending by the Credit Contract and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA). This requires lenders to ensure their product is suitable for the borrower and that borrowers are able to meet the debt repayments without substantial hardship.

This affordability requirement prevents lenders from giving loans to people who, after necessary expenses, wouldn’t be able to meet the repayments. Until recently, delayed payment schemes fell outside our definition of “debt”.

Despite bearing all the characteristics of borrowing, providers have been able to present themselves as being better than traditional forms of lending.

Regardless of how these payment schemes have presented themselves, there has been bipartisan support to bring buy now, pay later schemes under the rules of the CCCFA.

New rules are coming

From September 2024, delayed payment lenders will need to do a credit check on users. But these lenders will remain exempt from the affordability and suitability assessments that exist on other types of borrowing.

Consumer advocates argue that requiring credit checks is necessary to prevent people getting into financial trouble.

At the same time, these groups acknowledge the accessibility of delayed payment schemes enables people currently locked out of low-cost consumer finance (often due to poor past credit histories) to borrow at no cost.

Read more:
‘Similar to ordering a pizza’: how buy now, pay later apps influence young people’s spending

Unlike credit cards, where balances incur ongoing interest costs, delayed payment schemes are limited to smaller sums and the total late repayment fee is capped. Afterpay, for example, has a $2,000 limit and caps fees at $68 or 25% of the original purchase price, whichever is lower.

Time will tell whether these limits will be enough to protect New Zealanders from getting into financial strife. But the path to financial wellbeing for young New Zealand adults is increasingly more difficult and treacherous.

And the consequences of poor financial decisions are severe, limiting future opportunities like home ownership and savings.

Our findings suggest delayed payment schemes are increasing the over-indebtedness of younger users in a way that other forms of similar consumer debt do not. These payment schemes should be regulated in the same way as credit cards and hire purchases – if it looks like debt, it should be treated as debt.

Ayesha Scott has collaborated with Good Shepherd NZ and BNZ, and has consulted for KiwiSaver providers as an independent expert reviewer.

Aaron Gilbert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. If it looks like debt, let’s treat it like debt – ‘buy now, pay later’ schemes need firmer regulation in NZ – https://theconversation.com/if-it-looks-like-debt-lets-treat-it-like-debt-buy-now-pay-later-schemes-need-firmer-regulation-in-nz-211820

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shasha Wang, Senior lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

If you spend much time online you’ve probably seen one of Temu’s colourful ads – punctuated by its catchy tagline: “shopping like a billionaire”.

Temu specialises in selling various everyday items, including clothing, toys and household goods, for extremely low prices. Shanghai-based company PDD Holdings launched the online marketplace late last year (initially in the United States) to cater to overseas customers.

Since then, Temu’s reach has skyrocketed. The total value of products sold went from US$3 million in September last year, to US$400 million in April. At the time of publishing this article, Temu was the most popular free iPhone app in the US, United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.

Why has Temu been such a massive success? It’s safe to say the platform has some winning strategies that keep consumers coming back. But beyond that, similar to other e-commerce platforms, using it isn’t entirely risk- or guilt-free. Here are some things to consider if you’re thinking of giving it a shot.

What are Temu’s secrets to success?

1. Value

Many Australians might associate “made in China” with cheap price tags and low quality. However, Temu’s consumers are beginning to view it as offering affordable products that do not necessarily compromise on quality. In some cases, 10-20 products will only set you back US$20-30.

Temu claims it can offer these prices as a result of cutting out the middlemen in the supply chain. While the manufacturers provide the product details and the products themselves, Temu handles everything else – from customs processing to international shipping. This streamlining helps reduce unit costs.

Nonetheless, achieving such value doesn’t come without a cost. Concerns are rising that Temu and its suppliers may be operating at a loss. However, it’s common for startups to experience negative cash flow in their initial years due to heavy marketing investments, including offers of competitive prices and marketing campaigns – all of which is done to build brand awareness and gain acceptance.

This is especially true in the fast-paced e-commerce sector, where success and failure happen swiftly. Temu and its suppliers, who are mainly from Temu’s sister e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, are likely aware of this dynamic.

2. An effective marketing strategy

Unlike other e-commerce platforms that focus on functional benefits such as saving money, Temu caters to consumers’ emotional needs. It overlays the shopping experience with the idea of “shopping like a billionaire” – which also aligns with its value-based strategy.

Temu entered the market at a time when consumers were grappling with global inflation, leading them to seek “value”. In the first month after its launch in the US, Temu invested some US$200 million in advertising and planned a US$2 billion budget for the year.

Given China’s leadership in live-streaming influencer marketing, Temu is now recruiting social media influencers, suggesting it might leverage its Chinese expertise to explore a social-commerce strategy. Social commerce harnesses a sense of “friendship” conveyed by influencers, making the online shopping experience more engaging and product recommendations more convincing. It also works especially well with sales promotions.

Sales promotion tactics

While Temu employs common sales tactics seen on other e-commerce platforms, it uses what is arguably the broadest array of these techniques. Here are just some examples:

• Gamified experiences. Gamified advertising hinges on two core elements: challenge and reward. Interacting with Temu’s spinning wheel is a minor challenge, but the substantial discount offered is a major reward. Such “games” create the illusion of getting lucky, and therefore generate positive emotions in consumers – while the reward gives them an incentive to engage more seriously with their browsing, increasing the likelihood of spending.

• Lightning deals and limited-time offers. One commonly used promotion tactic involves creating the illusion of scarcity through supposedly “exclusive” offers that are time-sensitive and won’t come by again. This can trigger a fear of missing out in consumers.

• Discounts and free shipping Offering simple price reductions and very affordable sales is a time-honoured way of securing a loyal customer base. In addition, Temu has the allure of offering free shipping on orders with a very low minimum spend.

• Loyalty program. Consumers can opt in to Temu’s marketing emails in exchange for receiving more promotional content, including email-only promotions. E-commerce companies often have access to your personal information (such as your name, address, age and phone number) and behavioural data (such as from your search history and online sessions). With this data, the company can build your user profile and target you with personalised promotions and content to encourage spending.

• Search engine marketing. Many consumers will see Temu ads at the top of their search results on Google (in the form of “sponsored” posts) when they search for a product.

• An AI-powered promotional strategy. Temu’s sister company operating in China, Pinduoduo, is renowned for its AI-driven recommendation system. It’s likely Temu uses similar AI algorithms, drawing on users’ browsing and purchase history to provide personalised recommendations (a practice Amazon also partakes in).

Defending against manipulation

Temu’s greatest benefit to consumers lies in its offer of value. It may still have lower-quality items, but this is common among all e-commerce platforms.

Also, Temu’s business model is built around emphasising top-selling products, which helps filter out low-quality products. Its 90-day free return policy further acts as a buffer for unsatisfactory purchases.

Nonetheless, Temu’s value-oriented approach may not be a good thing for consumers on all fronts. Exposed to such a wide array of marketing tactics, users might become more prone to overconsumption – which leads to environmental waste and post-purchase regret.

It’s worth considering your actual needs before using an e-commerce platform such as Temu. You should also familiarise yourself with the sales promotion tactics being used. Research suggests understanding these tactics, as well as advertisers’ intentions, can even empower young children to be sceptical and form a cognitive defence against them.

Also, in light of Temu’s gamified advertising strategy, consumers ought to temper their enthusiasm for rewards. Moving forward, one useful approach may be for schools and governments to introduce educational programs or social marketing campaigns that teach advertising tactics, and recommend coping strategies.

Temu didn’t respond to The Conversation’s request for comment.

Read more:
Blind bags: how toy makers are making a fortune with child gambling

Xiaoling Guo receives funding from Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

Shasha Wang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Temu: China’s answer to Amazon is already Australia’s most popular free app. What makes it so addictive? – https://theconversation.com/temu-chinas-answer-to-amazon-is-already-australias-most-popular-free-app-what-makes-it-so-addictive-212463

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) has announced it will expand its “crackdown” on the cosmetic surgery industry. As the agency responsible for registering, accrediting and disciplining health practitioners, AHPRA is well placed to reshape conduct in what sociologists once called the appearance industry.

It plans to develop stricter guidelines for non-surgical cosmetic procedures – especially advertising practices, consent procedures and pre-procedure suitability screening.

The regulator’s primary targets are health practitioners authorised to prescribe restricted drugs (schedule 4 medicines) to patients for aesthetic enhancement. The compounds are regulated differently across each state and territory, but they are generally restricted to medical and nursing practitioners or people directly supervised by them.

But how does the regulator propose to make aesthetic medicine safer for patients, and what problems might lie beyond its reach?

Safe and effective … in skilled hands

AHPRA’s statement sets out a range of treatments it hopes to make safer for patients. Among them is the most common cosmetic procedure in the world: botulinum toxin type A, commonly known as Botox.

Widely used to reduce wrinkles, Botox is also the most potent neurotoxin ever discovered and was first proposed as a chemical weapon. It’s also injected to treat eyelid spasms, excessive sweating, some bladder disorders and migraine.

Botox functions only at extremely low doses and has been approved for market supply since the early 2000s. Research demonstrates it is safe and effective for cosmetic purposes. But a comprehensive study from the United Kingdom found about 16% of patients reported adverse events including bruising, headache and paresis (muscle weakness or paralysis).

One critical aspect of its safety is the injector’s skill. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia recently updated its position statement on cosmetic injections, underlining the skills expected.

The other injectables to be reviewed – dermal fillers, such as the widely used hyaluronic acid and fat-dissolving agents like deoxycholic acid – present their own safety issues. The death of a patient given fillers in Sydney in 2017 drew attention to the risks of these treatments and the importance of oversight.

Read more:
COVID or COVID vaccination can cause dermal fillers to swell up

Body image: a hidden source of harm

As AHPRA acknowledges, a different kind of risk is presented by the connection between Botox and body image disorders. One recent study found recipients of Botox reported fewer body dysmorphic symptoms than a control group. Others have shown patients with histories of body image distress tend to express dissatisfaction with cosmetic procedures and their mental health may worsen after treatment.

But the prospect of a patient with body dysmorphia also raises important legal questions for the law of medical consent and the practitioner’s duty to warn a patient of relevant harms.

The Australian legal standard of medical consent, established in 1991, requires a practitioner to warn the patient of all “material” risks – those that the specific patient does or would consider significant – posed by the treatment or procedure. The same principle was adopted by the English courts in 2015.

For patients with mental health issues, a practitioner would usually identify the likelihood of increased mental distress as a material risk. Valid consent would therefore entail discussion of the psychological risks of treatment.

The review will also home in on the risks of “thread lifting”, where barbed absorbable sutures are threaded under the skin to pull it into a certain position, and intense pulsed light (IPL) treatments for scar resurfacing and hair removal.

Read more:
What’s the connection between cosmetic procedures and mental health?

Vulnerable patients and the media

Manipulative media environments can exacerbate patients’ vulnerability.

While some doctors may seek to capitalise on insecurity, other promotions might normalise interventions and understate the risks.

COVID lockdowns and the closure of clinics reportedly increased stress for patients seeking cosmetic procedures. Others expressed increased concern about their facial appearance due to the apparently unflattering light of teleconferencing.

A recent study of Tiktok videos tagged with #dermalfillers found most videos, many of which were promotions, lacked any reference to the risks of treatments.

AHPRA proposes to address these issues by reformulating the guidelines for advertising, introducing stricter rules to control “before and after” images, social media influencing and reinforcing the ban on testimonials for health services.

Read more:
Linda Evangelista says fat freezing made her a recluse. Cryolipolysis can do the opposite to what’s promised

A long time coming

Almost exactly a year ago, AHPRA published an independent report into doctors who performed cosmetic surgery. The report followed widely reported cases of poor cosmetic surgery practices resulting in terrible patient outcomes.

As a result, the medical regulator created new advertising guidelines and a cosmetic surgery hub for complaints.

At the same time, an agreement was reached between Australia’s health ministers that the title “cosmetic surgeon” – virtually unregulated for 20 years – would become restricted. The amendment Bill is expected to pass and will mean no medical practitioner can call themselves a surgeon without meeting a new accreditation standard.

Yet GPs said the reforms had neglected non-surgical procedures.

Read more:
Doctors may soon get official ‘endorsements’ to practise cosmetic surgery – but will that protect patients?

Regulating modern cosmetics: it’s complicated

There are multiple centres of regulatory enforcement for cosmetic procedures.

While AHPRA and its national boards regulate health practitioners and the advertising of health services, other agencies co-regulate.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) reviews and approves all injectable products for market supply. While it has approved many products for cosmetic injection, the TGA identifies such interventions as serious medical procedures.

And while AHPRA deals with the advertising of health services, the TGA will prosecute some advertising breaches while Australian Consumer Law will control others.

Mind the gaps

Because AHPRA has no real authority to regulate the actions of those who are not health practitioners, the reforms are unlikely to affect those operating outside a medical setting, such as self-injectors or people who go to so-called “Botox parties”.

Still, state laws will make the unauthorised use of schedule 4 drugs an offence in each jurisdiction.

While it is too early to tell if the proposed reforms will improve patient outcomes dramatically, reforms like this play a critical role in setting standards and clarifying patient expectations.

Christopher Rudge has received research funding from the Commonwealth Medical Research Future Fund for a project about improving patients’ decision-making for stem cell therapies.

– ref. Botox and fillers to come under greater scrutiny by the medical regulator. Will it be too little too late? – https://theconversation.com/botox-and-fillers-to-come-under-greater-scrutiny-by-the-medical-regulator-will-it-be-too-little-too-late-212866

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Partlett, Associate Professor, The University of Melbourne

The “no” campaign’s primary argument in the current referendum debate focuses on the dangerous consequences of a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament.

This argument is relevant to the parliamentary debate about how a constitutional Voice to Parliament will be set up through legislation. But it has no bearing on the referendum debate.

This debate involves a different, moral question: do you support the idea of recognising First Australians in the Constitution by giving them a voice on matters that affect them?

What exactly is the ‘no’ campaign arguing?

Although the “no” campaign opposes a constitutionally enshrined Voice, some of its key leaders are not against the general idea of a Voice institution itself. Instead, many “no” campaigners, including Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, support legislated Voice institutions at the regional level.

The “no” side also does not oppose constitutional recognition for First Australians. Dutton has recently promised that if the Voice referendum fails, the Coalition would hold another referendum on First Nations constitutional recognition if it is returned to power.

The “no” side’s main argument, therefore, is a very specific one. It focuses on what it claims are the dangerous consequences of recognising First Australians by placing a Voice institution in the Australian Constitution.

Read more:
Why can’t we just establish the Voice to Parliament through legislation? A constitutional law expert explains

In its official campaign pamphlet, the “no” side claims that doing this will:

• be “legally risky” and lead to litigation

• “risk delay and dysfunction” in government

• be a “costly and bureaucratic” institution with “no issue beyond its scope”.

Finally, the “no” side claims the Albanese government has not put forth any details on how this Voice body would function, and it would be a “permanent” change that will open the door for “activists”.

The nature of constitutions

These concerns, however, fundamentally misunderstand how constitutions work.

Constitutions are not detailed documents that anticipate every possible circumstance. On the contrary, they are by nature short and incomplete documents. They inherently contain large gaps.

In Australia, the evolution of constitutional institutions has been primarily shaped by parliament through legislation.

Take the constitutional provision creating the High Court as an example. The Constitution contains very little detail on how the High Court operates. It does not even specify how many justices will be on the court. It merely says:

The High Court shall consist of a Chief Justice, and so many other Justices, not less than two, as the Parliament prescribes.

Indeed, it was left to parliament to establish the jurisdiction and powers of the High Court in the Judiciary Act in 1903. And since then, parliament has passed numerous amendments that continue to shape the operation of the court, ensuring it continues to develop in line with the needs of contemporary Australian society.

For instance, the court has increased in size from three to seven justices in order to handle its increasing case load, which many in the early 20th century thought would be very light.

The Voice to Parliament proposal

The proposed Voice body will operate in the same way. The proposal is typical of other clauses already in the Constitution – it contains little detail other than there “shall be a body” called the “Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders Voice” that will make “representations” to parliament.
Details on how the body is selected and how it will operate are explicitly left to parliament.

The final section of the proposed Voice provision states:

the parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.

If the October referendum vote is successful, it will be up to the current parliament to pass the foundational legislation setting up the Voice body. But this law will always be subject to change by subsequent parliaments. If there are problems with the way it functions, future parliaments can fix those issues through amending legislation (just as the functioning of the High Court has changed over time).

The proposed constitutional Voice will, therefore, operate in much the same way as a legislated Voice would. In the end, both would be controlled by parliament.

The various concerns of the “no” side are best suited to this legislative debate. For instance, it will be important to ensure the legislation creating the Voice does not lead to dysfunctional government or become a costly or ineffective bureaucracy.

But the “no” side’s concerns have no bearing on the constitutional question we all must answer in the referendum.

Read more:
The Voice to Parliament explained

A moral question

Instead, we face a clearer, moral question on October 14: do we support the idea of recognising First Australians in the Constitution by giving them a voice in matters that affect them?

In answering this question, it is worth considering the findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody from more than 30 years ago.

The commission linked the shocking number of First Australians dying in state custody to the historical fact that Aboriginal people have faced “deliberate and systematic disempowerment” for more than a century. It said:

Decisions were made about them and for them and imposed upon them.

Only First Nations empowerment, the report concluded, would overcome this disadvantage.

This empowerment process began with a series of First Nations regional dialogues that ultimately called for a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament in 2017. This empowerment is not real, however, until we heed this call.

William Partlett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. No, the Voice proposal will not be ‘legally risky’. This misunderstands how constitutions work – https://theconversation.com/no-the-voice-proposal-will-not-be-legally-risky-this-misunderstands-how-constitutions-work-212696

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shasha Wang, Senior lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

If you spend much time online you’ve probably seen one of Temu’s colourful ads – punctuated by its catchy tagline: “shopping like a billionaire”.

Temu specialises in selling various everyday items, including clothing, toys and household goods, for extremely low prices. Shanghai-based company PDD Holdings launched the online marketplace late last year (initially in the United States) to cater to overseas customers.

Since then, Temu’s reach has skyrocketed. The total value of products sold went from US$3 million in September last year, to US$400 million in April. At the time of publishing this article, Temu was the most popular free iPhone app in the US, United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.

Why has Temu been such a massive success? It’s safe to say the platform has some winning strategies that keep consumers coming back. But beyond that, similar to other e-commerce platforms, using it isn’t entirely risk- or guilt-free. Here are some things to consider if you’re thinking of giving it a shot.

What are Temu’s secrets to success?

1. Value

Many Australians might associate “made in China” with cheap price tags and low quality. However, Temu’s consumers are beginning to view it as offering affordable products that do not necessarily compromise on quality. In some cases, 10-20 products will only set you back US$20-30.

Temu claims it can offer these prices as a result of cutting out the middlemen in the supply chain. While the manufacturers provide the product details and the products themselves, Temu handles everything else – from customs processing to international shipping. This streamlining helps reduce unit costs.

Nonetheless, achieving such value doesn’t come without a cost. Concerns are rising that Temu and its suppliers may be operating at a loss. However, it’s common for startups to experience negative cash flow in their initial years due to heavy marketing investments, including offers of competitive prices and marketing campaigns – all of which is done to build brand awareness and gain acceptance.

This is especially true in the fast-paced e-commerce sector, where success and failure happen swiftly. Temu and its suppliers, who are mainly from Temu’s sister e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, are likely aware of this dynamic.

2. An effective marketing strategy

Unlike other e-commerce platforms that focus on functional benefits such as saving money, Temu caters to consumers’ emotional needs. It overlays the shopping experience with the idea of “shopping like a billionaire” – which also aligns with its value-based strategy.

Temu entered the market at a time when consumers were grappling with global inflation, leading them to seek “value”. In the first month after its launch in the US, Temu invested some US$200 million in advertising and planned a US$2 billion budget for the year.

Given China’s leadership in live-streaming influencer marketing, Temu is now recruiting social media influencers, suggesting it might leverage its Chinese expertise to explore a social-commerce strategy. Social commerce harnesses a sense of “friendship” conveyed by influencers, making the online shopping experience more engaging and product recommendations more convincing. It also works especially well with sales promotions.

Sales promotion tactics

While Temu employs common sales tactics seen on other e-commerce platforms, it uses what is arguably the broadest array of these techniques. Here are just some examples:

• Gamified experiences. Gamified advertising hinges on two core elements: challenge and reward. Interacting with Temu’s spinning wheel is a minor challenge, but the substantial discount offered is a major reward. Such “games” create the illusion of getting lucky, and therefore generate positive emotions in consumers – while the reward gives them an incentive to engage more seriously with their browsing, increasing the likelihood of spending.

• Lightning deals and limited-time offers. One commonly used promotion tactic involves creating the illusion of scarcity through supposedly “exclusive” offers that are time-sensitive and won’t come by again. This can trigger a fear of missing out in consumers.

• Discounts and free shipping Offering simple price reductions and very affordable sales is a time-honoured way of securing a loyal customer base. In addition, Temu has the allure of offering free shipping on orders with a very low minimum spend.

• Loyalty program. Consumers can opt in to Temu’s marketing emails in exchange for receiving more promotional content, including email-only promotions. E-commerce companies often have access to your personal information (such as your name, address, age and phone number) and behavioural data (such as from your search history and online sessions). With this data, the company can build your user profile and target you with personalised promotions and content to encourage spending.

• Search engine marketing. Many consumers will see Temu ads at the top of their search results on Google (in the form of “sponsored” posts) when they search for a product.

• An AI-powered promotional strategy. Temu’s sister company operating in China, Pinduoduo, is renowned for its AI-driven recommendation system. It’s likely Temu uses similar AI algorithms, drawing on users’ browsing and purchase history to provide personalised recommendations (a practice Amazon also partakes in).

Defending against manipulation

Temu’s greatest benefit to consumers lies in its offer of value. It may still have lower-quality items, but this is common among all e-commerce platforms.

Also, Temu’s business model is built around emphasising top-selling products, which helps filter out low-quality products. Its 90-day free return policy further acts as a buffer for unsatisfactory purchases.

Nonetheless, Temu’s value-oriented approach may not be a good thing for consumers on all fronts. Exposed to such a wide array of marketing tactics, users might become more prone to overconsumption – which leads to environmental waste and post-purchase regret.

It’s worth considering your actual needs before using an e-commerce platform such as Temu. You should also familiarise yourself with the sales promotion tactics being used. Research suggests understanding these tactics, as well as advertisers’ intentions, can even empower young children to be sceptical and form a cognitive defence against them.

Also, in light of Temu’s gamified advertising strategy, consumers ought to temper their enthusiasm for rewards. Moving forward, one useful approach may be for schools and governments to introduce educational programs or social marketing campaigns that teach advertising tactics, and recommend coping strategies.

Temu didn’t respond to The Conversation’s request for comment.

Read more:
Blind bags: how toy makers are making a fortune with child gambling

Xiaoling Guo receives funding from Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

Shasha Wang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. New Chinese shopping app Temu is set to overtake Amazon. What makes it so addictive? – https://theconversation.com/new-chinese-shopping-app-temu-is-set-to-overtake-amazon-what-makes-it-so-addictive-212463

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phoebe Holdenson Kimura, Lecturer and GP, University of Sydney

Heavy menstrual bleeding or heavy periods affect up to a quarter of women and people who menstruate, and can impact quality of life. Women who have had heavy periods for a long time often consider this normal, or something to be simply put up with.

Diagnosing heavy periods has traditionally been based on the nature of bleeding. Women might describe bleeding through clothing, having to change pads and tampons every two hours or sooner, or passing clots larger than a 50 cent coin. Doctors consider a woman to have heavy periods if she regularly loses more than 80 millilitres of blood during one menstrual period. That’s four Australian tablespoons’ worth. Women diagnosed with heavy bleeding should follow up with their doctor to establish the cause of their bleeding and guide treatment.

But estimating blood loss and getting a sense of when it’s outside the normal range can be difficult. Recent research on how best to manage menstrual blood could help.

Read more:
Heavy periods are common. What can you do, and when should you seek help?

More period options than ever

There are now a variety of menstrual products for women to choose from.

These include disposable pads and tampons, as well as reusable products such as menstrual cups and discs, washable pads and period underwear. There are multiple factors which influence choice of menstrual product, including comfort, cost, capacity, environmental benefits and potential health risks.

A 2022 French survey of over 1,100 women showed traditional sanitary protection was still the most widely used there (81% used disposable pads and 46% used tampons) but 16% of respondents were using alternative products. A recent study in Victoria indicated many young people are choosing reusable products, with environmental impacts an important motivator.

Another benefit of reusable menstrual cups and menstrual discs is they can remain in the vagina for up to 12 hours. A menstrual cup sits in the vagina below the cervix and extends into the canal. A menstrual disc, on the other hand, fits back into the vaginal fornix, which is where your vaginal canal meets your cervix. Discs are usually wider and shallower than cups and can be worn during sex. There are now reusable and disposable options for menstrual discs.

Read more:
Does anyone have a pad? TV is finally dismantling the period taboo

What holds the most blood?

There has been very limited research into the maximum capacity of different menstrual products. Manufacturers can report collection capacity of their products using liquids such as water.

A recent research study from the United States aimed to more accurately measure the capacity of menstrual products in the laboratory using expired donated human blood, which is more similar to menstrual blood.

Some 21 different menstrual products were tested in the study. Menstrual discs showed the greatest capacity (61ml on average) and period underwear held the least (2ml on average).

Tampons, pads, and menstrual cups held similar amounts of blood (approximately 20–50mL). The authors noted it is difficult to accurately approximate capacity for patients with heavy menstrual bleeding due to “flooding” (high-velocity flow) and passing clots.

The comparison shows period underwear, despite its advertised capacity, may actually only absorb a small amount of blood and very slowly. Women with heavy periods tend to use period underwear as “back up” for another method.

We need a standardised scale for menstrual bleeding

Currently, the ways to determine whether someone is having heavy menstrual bleeding is through asking detailed questions and using the Pictorial Blood Loss Assessment Chart, which relates to the saturation of menstrual pads and tampons.

The overall impact of the heaviness of menstrual bleeding on a woman’s quality of life is also important.

Even with pads and tampons, there is significant variability in terms of capacity. The introduction of newer products potentially introduces more confusion, with both users and clinicians uncertain about the storage capacity of each category of product, and specific brands within these categories.

With heavy menstrual bleeding often underdiagnosed and undertreated, clinicians need to ask specifically about the menstrual products used and how they are used to better understand a person’s bleeding patterns. The fresh US research could help women and their doctors better assess the heaviness of their periods.

Read more:
Health Check: are painful periods normal?

3 tips for managing heavy flow

• 1. Experiment with period products. It may be good to try out different types of products (and even different products in the same category) to find the ones that suit you best. The advertised capacity of each product may not ring true with your own experience, due to the nature of your flow (particularly if it is heavy or “gushes”).

• 2. Monitor the heaviness of your period. The capacity of different menstrual products varies widely. Menstrual discs have very high storage capacity in comparison to other products. That can actually lead to an underestimation of menstrual loss. Looking up the storage capacity of each product can help you work out whether you are having heavy periods or not, even though we know this may be based on liquids like water. This information can be found on the product website or the new study.

• 3. When to seek medical advice. If you think you might be having heavy periods, feel tired or dizzy during your period, or you feel your periods are interfering with your life, talk to your GP or other healthcare professional. It can help to track the heaviness of your periods and how often you are changing your period product and to bring this record to your appointment. Your GP can talk to you about treatment with medications (both hormonal and non-hormonal) and other management options.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How much period blood is ‘normal’? And which sanitary product holds the most blood? – https://theconversation.com/how-much-period-blood-is-normal-and-which-sanitary-product-holds-the-most-blood-211418

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treena Clark, Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Indigenous Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people. This story also contains examples of outdated language

During the campaign for the 1967 First Nations referendum, which would go on to receive a 90.77% “yes” vote, the late human rights campaigner Faith Bandler believed fashion and clothing could play a key role in encouraging voters.

A South Sea Islander/Scottish Indian woman, Bandler played a lead role in the 1967 referendum campaign. She described wearing white day gloves when campaigning and speaking to non-Indigenous audiences:

I used to wear short white gloves. They were acceptable to the white community I came in contact with when I was campaigning for black women’s rights. I wore them from 1956 until the mid-1960s. During that period I only ever addressed white audiences. I only had to convince them.

The fashion during the 1967 referendum was conservative. Speakers such as Bandler featured subtle accessories and respectable clothing, occasionally accented by a badge that modestly communicated their message.

It is a far cry from the overt – and often casual – ways fashion is being used in the 2023 referendum campaign.

Read more:
Vale Faith Bandler: anti-racist intellectual and activist

Subtle style

First Nations women, and particularly older women were often the voice of the 1967 referendum, and appearances were important.

Campaigners emphasised respectability and etiquette by wearing structured and formal outfits. Older women wore their Sunday best: dresses with hats, skirts with jacket sets or casual pencil skirts with dressy turtlenecks, and small and subtle jewellery.

The older men wore suits, short-sleeved shirts (with or without structured jackets and slacks) and knitted vests.

In reflecting the changing times and optimism, younger men often wore smart and structured t-shirts with trousers.

Young women chose headbands over hats, knitted jumpers and sweaters over suit sets and large earrings over delicate adornment.

The iconic badges

In an iconic photo of the campaign efforts, Ngarrindjeri and Boandik campaigner Shirley Peisley wore a white dress with peter pan collar. Ever so subtly, a 1967 referendum badge is displayed on her lapel. With her hair perfectly coiffed, her only jewellery was a bracelet and wedding ring.

Badges were instrumental in the campaign. They were striking, temporary and expressed an articulate campaign.

Jackie Huggins (Bidjara and Birri Gubba Juru) remembers, as an 11-year-old, handing out badges to promote the campaign.

If I was asked to make one more toffee or lamington for a fundraising drive (or do the hula) or stand on another street corner handing out badges …

Badges have long been used for First Nations political and social statements. In the late 1800s, some First Nations people wore temperance badges as a pledge of abstinence from alcohol.

Returned & Services League and Mothers Mourners badges were significant for First Nations people who served or lost family members in war. These badges were a source of pride of service and mateship.

For the 1962 Commonwealth Electoral Act, which granted First Nations people the right to vote in Federal elections, tin badges declared “Our Vote = Our Future”. Other badges worn by the 1960s First Nations rights groups featured boomerang shapes and circular Aboriginal rights designs.

Unlike today, t-shirts were not a part of the 1967 referendum campaign. First Nations slogan t-shirts were first worn in the 1970s.

Read more:
‘Right wrongs, write Yes’: what was the 1967 referendum all about?

Referendum fashion today

Fashion is again playing a role in the 2023 referendum.

Today, clothes are brighter and more casual. Concepts of “etiquette” have almost entirely broken down.

First Nations designers and artists have shaped textiles and fashion over the decades. Youth and street styles, which often pair text with clothing and make cheeky or ironic gestures, are worn by many.

At a Blak Sovereign Movement press conference, Senator Lidia Thorpe (Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung) wore an outfit representing cultural pride. Her jacket, pants, and shoes represented the Aboriginal flag colours of black, yellow, and red. Her Treaty t-shirt and Aboriginal flag earrings were strong with symbolism.

Fellow “no” campaigner from the opposite end of the political spectrum, Senator Jacinta Yangapi Nampijinpa Price (Warlpiri/Celtic), chooses a t-shirt with the slogan “Vote No to the voice of division”, often with a conservative blazer.

Mutthi Mutthi and Wamba Wamba woman and Senator Jana Stewart wore a ball gown designed by First Nations label Clothing the Gaps to the Midwinter Ball.

The white silk dress featured the Uluru Statement from the Heart written in black and of different sizes and red embroidered yeses.

The “yes” campaign merchandise of t-shirts, jumpers and badges highlight bright or natural colours as a cheerful and optimistic response to the movement. These are being worn by official campaigners and casual voters alike.

The fashions of the 2023 referendum are very different from 1967. The act of protest incorporated in everyday street wear and evening dresses would have shocked the general public in the 1960s. It would have amazed people to see campaigners wearing outfits that overtly described the campaign movement.

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Treena Clark has received funding through the University of Technology Sydney Chancellor’s Indigenous Research Fellowship scheme.

Peter McNeil does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. From badges to ball gowns: how fashion took centre-stage in the 1967 and 2023 referendums – https://theconversation.com/from-badges-to-ball-gowns-how-fashion-took-centre-stage-in-the-1967-and-2023-referendums-212693

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Niven Winchester, Professor of Economics, Auckland University of Technology

Despite New Zealand’s record loss to South Africa in August, All Blacks fans can take heart from statistical modelling that has them as favourites to win the 2023 Rugby World Cup (RWC).

According to Rugby Vision, a well-tested algorithm I developed to predict outcomes for major rugby competitions, New Zealand has a 33.5% chance of winning their fourth RWC title. The next most likely champions are South Africa (26.2%), followed by France (20.6%) and Ireland (11.9%).

Evaluation of the model’s predictions at previous RWCs indicate it is well calibrated. And while the system has some similarities with the official world rugby rankings, it is less sensitive to the outcome of any particular game.

The Rugby Vision model uses three key components: a rating system for international teams; estimation of expected outcomes for each RWC game using those ratings; and 10,000 simulations of the tournament to account for uncertainty around expected outcomes.

Global rugby rankings

The Rugby Vision rankings are a custom “points exchange” system based on past game results and home advantage (if applicable).

After each of those games, the team that performed better than expected will gain rating points, and the team that performed worse than expected will lose rating points.

These rankings and ratings points for the 20 teams that have qualified for the 2023 RWC are displayed below. New Zealand is the top ranked team, followed by South Africa, Ireland and France.

The same four teams make up the top four in the official rankings, but the seedings are different. Currently, the official world rankings have Ireland at the top, followed in order by South Africa, France and New Zealand.

Predicting game results

In the Rugby Vision rankings, differences between rating points for any two teams equal the predicted score margin for a game played at a neutral venue. Home advantage (if applicable) is worth 5.5 points.

This means that in the opening game of this year’s RWC – between France and New Zealand in Paris – New Zealand is expected to win by three points. This is based on the difference in the teams’ rating points (128 minus 119.5) plus 5.5 for the France home advantage.

This estimate means that if the game was played 100 times, New Zealand would win by three points on average. According to the model, in those hypothetical 100 matches, New Zealand would win 57 games, France would win 40, and three games would be drawn.

RWC simulations

World Cup teams are initially separated into four pools, with the top two teams in each pool qualifying for the quarterfinals.

In pool games, four competition points are awarded for a win, two points for a draw, and two types of bonus points are offered (one point can be earned for losing by seven or fewer points, and one point is awarded for scoring four or more tries).

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Accordingly, the Rugby Vision framework includes a model that estimates the expected number of tries scored by each team in each game.

To account for uncertainty in game outcomes, the system simulates the RWC 10,000 times in accordance with tournament rules. For each of these simulated tournaments, the framework estimates game results and bonus points for each pool game, pool finishing positions, knockout matches, and the winner of each knockout game.

Estimated probabilities of each team reaching various stages of the 2023 RWC are shown below. These are influenced by team rating points (including home advantage for France), and the draw (which pool each team is in, and rules for allocating teams to knockout games).

Pool predictions and beyond

In Pool A, heavyweights New Zealand (98.9%) and France (97.9%) are highly likely to qualify for the quarterfinals. South Africa and Ireland are the likely quarter-finalists from Pool B, but there is a 26.3% chance Scotland will send one of those teams home early.

Pool C appears to be the most even group. Australia (87.2%) and Wales (68.3.2%) are the most likely teams to progress, but Fiji (37.3%) also has a reasonable chance of qualifying for the quarterfinals.

In Pool D, England and Argentina are favourites to make the quarterfinals, with Japan and Samoa possible spoilers.

After the initial round, Pool A teams will play opponents from Pool B in the quarterfinals. Because these are strong pools, semifinalist probabilities for these teams are relatively low.

For example, Ireland has an 81.2% chance of being a quarterfinalist but only a 33.1% probability of making the semifinals.

Teams in Pools B and C will have easier quarterfinal opponents. Consequently, despite relatively low rankings, England is the second most likely team to make the semifinals.

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Towards the final whistle

In the semifinals, teams from Pool A and/or B will play teams from Pool C and/or D. As teams from Pools A and B are heavily favoured to win those games, their finalist probabilities are only slightly lower than their semifinalist probabilities.

Conversely, Pool C and D teams with high semifinalist chances have relatively low finalist probabilities. For example, England has a 55.0% chance of playing in a semifinal but only a 9.7% chance of being a finalist.

The RWC draw makes it easier for Pool C and D teams to qualify for the semifinals, but these teams are all but guaranteed to play strong semifinal opponents. In short, the draw helps Pool C and D teams go deeper into the tournament, but does not increase their chances of winning.

Finally, while the Rugby Vision predictions provide a reliable forecast, upsets do happen – we just don’t know when. That’s what makes sport so interesting, after all.

Niven Winchester does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Who will win the 2023 Rugby World Cup? This algorithm uses 10,000 simulations to rank the contenders – https://theconversation.com/who-will-win-the-2023-rugby-world-cup-this-algorithm-uses-10-000-simulations-to-rank-the-contenders-212598

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Conley Tyler, Honorary Fellow, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne

In Jakarta today, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will release Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040, which sets a more active government role in promoting trade and investment links.

While Australia is using all elements of statecraft to build strong defence, diplomacy and development relationships with a crucial region, there’s a gap where economic activity should be. This strategy aims to redress that.

There is no doubt the Albanese government sees Southeast Asia as vital for Australia’s security and prosperity. From the Defence Strategic Review to the new International Development Policy, it’s clear partnerships with Australia’s northern neighbours are a key priority.

In general, Australian business hasn’t shared this view.

Despite its 687 million people and expanding middle class, Australia’s level of economic engagement with Southeast Asia has remained stubbornly low.

In a particularly damning statistic, Australia’s direct investment in New Zealand is more than in the whole of dynamic Southeast Asia. The region as a whole is forecast to average growth of 4% to 2040. This means it will become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2040, after the United States, China and India.

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Authored by former Macquarie Group CEO Nicholas Moore, the strategy is the result of extensive consultation with more than 750 Australian and regional businesses about how to expand trade and investment in the region. There were also 200 formal submissions.

The strategy sets out 75 recommendations to help increase economic engagement through raising awareness, removing blockages, building capability and deepening investment.

Australian governments have actually been trying for a long time to get Australian businesses interested in Southeast Asia. There has been a trade agreement in place with ASEAN since 2010, which was recently upgraded. The government has also funded organisations such as Asialink Business to build companies’ Asia capability for a decade.

Most recently, there has been official support for a “China +1” trade strategy to diversify Australia’s economic links and reduce its reliance on a single trading partner.

In the end, of course, business will make its own decisions. And unfortunately, trends are not positive. In recent years, Australia’s investment in Southeast Asia has been going down rather than up, against global trends.

Given greater economic engagement is not happening naturally, the new strategy sets out a much more active role for government in helping companies diversify into Southeast Asia. It’s not only exhorting Australian businesses to do better, but sets out ways government can actively remove blockages and lessen risks.

For example, the strategy recommends making it easier to invest in Australia by reducing the regulatory burden under the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). In addition, it would establish a “single-door concierge service” to facilitate inward foreign investment. It suggests work on harmonising standards for goods and services, and on professional qualifications. And it sees a role for government in improving connectivity through promoting transport links and migration reform to make it easier for businesspeople to come to Australia.

The strategy sees a role for government in providing seed funding. For example, working with industry to fund a Southeast Asia research grants scheme and establishing a targeted program to support Australian First Nations businesses to increase trade and investment with the region.

In the important area of infrastructure – where Southeast Asia will require an estimated $3 trillion in investment to 2040 – it suggests Australia can play a role in early-stage project preparation. This means investors can come in once it’s ready, leveraging private capital with government capital. It also floats the idea of a political risk insurance scheme.

The hope is this will reduce the reluctance of Australian businesses ensconced in comfortable domestic markets to take risk and earn reward.

To give a sense of the untapped potential, currently only 250 exporters make up 90% of Australia’s merchandise exports to Southeast Asia. There is a lot of room for other companies to get involved.

So the strategy also sees a continuing role for government in raising awareness of the economic opportunities. It recommends a “whole-of-nation plan” to strengthen Southeast Asia literacy in Australian business, government, the education and training system, and the community.

The strategy focuses on ten key industry sectors: agriculture, resources, green energy transition, infrastructure, education and skills, tourism, healthcare, digital economy, professional services and creative industries. Recommendations are broken down by country and sector.

So should government be taking such an active approach to promoting trade and investment with Southeast Asia? From a national interest perspective, absolutely.

Australia will gain strategic benefits from stronger economic engagement with Southeast Asia. Imagine the change in relations if Australia became a key partner in the region’s green economy transition or in building much-needed infrastructure. This would transform the way the region and Australia view each other.

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In the short-term, it would make Australia more important to the region. And in the longer-term, it would help create a stable, prosperous and predictable region, which is clearly what Australia wants.

Given the national interest in greater trade and investment with important neighbours to our north, government is right to look hard at how it can be a catalyst.

We can hope the strategy introduces more businesses to the opportunities in the region, so trade and investment will no longer be the missing link in Australia’s vital relationships with Southeast Asia.

Melissa Conley Tyler is Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D), a platform for collaboration between the development, diplomacy and defence communities. It receives funding from the Australian Civil-Military Centre and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and is hosted by the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID).

– ref. Albanese government launches new strategy for ties with Southeast Asia – and business is key – https://theconversation.com/albanese-government-launches-new-strategy-for-ties-with-southeast-asia-and-business-is-key-212846

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne

Climate activists lined the road to this year’s Burning Man festival in Nevada to call out the “privileged mindset” of the Silicon Valley types who flock there – and the waste involved in creating a temporary city in the desert.

Only a couple of days later, disaster struck. Unprecedented rain – 20 mm in 24 hours – turned the desert into mud, trapping the 70,000 festival goers.

As you might expect, the internet went wild with schadenfreude. But there’s a deeper issue here. This is not the first – and won’t be the last – outdoor festival upended by unprecedented weather. It was only a month ago when the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea was crippled by intense heat and typhoons, forcing its abandonment. Last year’s Splendour in the Grass festival in northern New South Wales turned into a mudpit after unprecedented rains.

Outdoor festivals are a summer rite of passage for many. Warm weather makes them possible. But summer’s when we often see the wildest weather too. As climate change loads the dice, we’ll see more festival disruptions, more often.

Summer may no longer be the right time for festivals

The biggest music festivals are usually held in summer months: Glastonbury in the United Kingdom and Tomorrowland in Belgium are held in the northern hemisphere summer, in late June and late July respectively. America’s Coachella festival takes place in April, but it’s in a desert where daytime temperatures over 30℃ are the norm.

As the world heats up, summer may soon be too risky for festival organisers. Creating large festivals is expensive and logistically challenging. Wipeouts from extreme weather events pose major financial risks.

When we go to festivals, we leave behind our houses and easy access to water. Many people camp in tents with relatively little protection from the elements.

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During heatwaves, it’s particularly important to stay out of the heat and sun in the middle of the day and to stay hydrated. This isn’t always possible at festivals. Many of us underestimate the effect of heat on our bodies.

Extreme rainfall is very challenging for organisers. Managing tens of thousands of muddy, stuck people is hard – especially if it’s too difficult to bring supplies in. That’s why Burning Man organisers had to call on their attendees to conserve food and water.

If you have tens or even hundreds of thousands of people exposed to the heatwave or rainfall, it can pose a risk to their health. Evacuating large numbers of people is logistically very challenging.

As the climate changes, we can expect more frequent and more severe extreme weather. This will make the job of festival organiser much harder.

Organisation matters

Well-organised festivals are much safer. If organisers think ahead and put contingency plans and adequate infrastructure in place, the chaos from extreme weather events can be much better managed.

For instance, during the trouble-stricken Scout Jamboree in Korea, there were real concerns over the intense heat, given children are more vulnerable.

But the heat shouldn’t have been a surprise. The event was held at the height of summer – albeit in a year of record breaking heat. So organisers should have anticipated heat and put in place better strategies to manage extreme weather. A simpler solution might have been avoiding the middle of summer.

What are we likely to see in the future?

Extreme weather hitting festivals isn’t new. The legendary 1969 Woodstock festival in California was also a mud pit.

What is new is the increased frequency and intensity of these events. Climate scientists have warned of these effects for decades. Now they’re arriving.

As we heat the planet, we’re getting more frequent, intense and longer-lasting heatwaves across the world. We also know we’re seeing more and more intense short-duration downpours which cause flash flooding.

It stands to reason we can expect to see more upheaval and health concerns at outdoor festivals.

What can be done? Expect to see festival dates move to shoulder seasons rather than midsummer. Some locations may no longer be viable. Last year’s Burning Man sweltered, with temperatures of 40℃.

If festival organisers don’t want to move date or location, the minimum response they’ll need is to actively plan to manage extreme weather and ensure key infrastructure like water and toilets are able to cope with heat or floods.

If the world keeps pumping out greenhouse gas emissions at high rates, we could see some summer festival locations get much hotter – rising 4–8℃. That’s because land areas in summer are expected to heat up quicker than the global average. Those higher temperatures would make it impossible to safely host a festival.

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Andrew King receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program.

– ref. Not burning, drowning: why outdoor festivals like Burning Man are reeling from extreme weather – https://theconversation.com/not-burning-drowning-why-outdoor-festivals-like-burning-man-are-reeling-from-extreme-weather-212864

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne

In most illegal tree removals, you might see perhaps a handful of trees removed or poisoned. That’s why the recent felling and poisoning of 265 old trees in Sydney’s Castle Cove has been so breathtaking and appalling.

This act – perpetrated by persons unknown – was not vandalism but theft of valuable community assets.

Future generations have been robbed of the benefits these trees – some of which were more than 80 years old – provided to our environment, the climate and as habitat for other plants and animals. It was theft on a grand scale.

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Tree loss will cost us as the climate changes

In contrast to Indigenous people, most Australians have undervalued large old trees for nearly two centuries. But many of the ecological and environmental benefits these trees provide increase as they age over decades and perhaps centuries. These benefits are crucial to urban liveability and sustainability.

A global movement is gaining momentum in urban forestry to preserve old trees for as long as we can to maximise the benefits they provide.

It is not about preservation at all cost, but a recognition that in a proper cost/benefit analysis, large old trees outperform younger trees. Unnecessary removal of large old trees is unsustainable both environmentally and economically.

This does not mean we should not replace dangerous trees or those that are rapidly declining.

It does mean, however, there should be no removal of large old trees without significant and demonstrably sound reasons.

Too many large, old, urban trees are being removed unnecessarily because other management options are not considered.

Whether via theft or bureaucratic-sanctioned tree removals, the general loss of old trees will cost us and our society dearly as the climate changes.

Old trees do things that young trees simply cannot

One of the significant benefits that trees provide over other vegetation types is that their leaf area is often more than double their canopy cover. This creates a great cooling effect via both shade and evapotranspiration (the movement of water into the atmosphere, some of which comes through leaves).

Large trees are unequalled in cooling the environment around them. Old trees simply do things on a scale that small young trees cannot.

This means a slow-growing old tree can take in and store more carbon than a quick-growing young seedling. Every gram of carbon stored in this way is carbon saved from going into the atmosphere as greenhouse gas emissions.

Both carbon stores and shade are crucial to mitigating future climate change.

All of this is lost when trees are illegally or unnecessarily removed. The impact is felt not just now but for decades into the future.

The loss of even a single tree comes at a huge price

The loss of so many trees in Sydney’s Castle Cove represents theft of environmental benefits and services from at least two, if not more, future generations of Australians. The trees lost were largely native coastal species that had decades (and in some cases more than a century) of growth before them.

We have known for many decades trees are often associated with between 30 and 50 other species – birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, fungi, algae and others. The removal of a tree affects most, if not all, of these other species. Some of these plants and animals will die as a result.

The number of associated species increases as the tree ages, and we have probably been underestimating species lost with large old tree removals in urban and natural forests.

Oaks in the UK, for example, are associated with over 2,300 other species. One can only wonder how many other species will be affected by the felling and poisoning of the trees at Castle Cove. The illegal loss of even a single tree comes at a huge price.

Simply planting new trees doesn’t fix the problem

We tend to undervalue the shade provided by trees when considering urban development, or even road works. But tree removals lead to more urban heat, which usually means higher electricity bills (as people crank up the air conditioner).

Large old trees are seen by some as an expendable nuisance. Some local council laws aim to protect trees of a certain size, but fines for illegal removals are small.

In some instances, a one-for-one tree replacement is offered. But to replace the carbon stored in one large, mature tree would require a vast number of seedlings, many of which fail to survive the first few years.

And it can take many years before planted trees reach carbon neutrality. The production, planting and maintenance processes all use resources, energy and fossil fuels, which means it can take decades before a tree is carbon positive.

This situation is unsustainable environmentally and ludicrous economically, but it seems to go largely unnoticed. We accrue all of the costs of these plantings and recoup precious little benefit.

It would be far more sensible and sustainable if we retained our large old trees, making every effort to maximise and prolong their life spans.

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Gregory Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The illegal killing of 265 trees on Sydney’s North Shore is not just vandalism. It’s theft on a grand scale – https://theconversation.com/the-illegal-killing-of-265-trees-on-sydneys-north-shore-is-not-just-vandalism-its-theft-on-a-grand-scale-212844

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rico Merkert, Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney

A turbulent two weeks for Qantas have today culminated in its group chief executive Alan Joyce fast-tracking his retirement by two months to help the organisation and its brand accelerate its renewal.

Joyce was on the way out in any case, and was paid a board-approved bonus worth more than A$10 million on Friday, to which were to be added short-term and long-term bonuses taking the total to $24 million.

What the early retirement will do is bring forward the arrival of chief executive-designate Vanessa Hudson to tomorrow, to enable her to drive a cultural change and a new strategy.

It is not unreasonable to assume she will say that what happened in the past is Joyce’s legacy and that under her leadership the airline will transform and essentially start with a clean sheet.

The new chief’s key challenges

Accelerating renewal of the fleet to improve its carbon impact is likely to be at the core of Hudson’s strategy. While the arrival of these “better for the environment” planes is expected to be expedited, the challenge for Hudson is to find the A$12 billion to A$20 billion that will enable Qantas to get to these greener and more sustainable pastures.

Taking greater care of the environment and the communities that Qantas serves, and having this as a key pillar of the renewed strategy and corporate communication, will be good for the airline. It will allow it to transform into an internationally and domestically competitive carrier, fit for the future in which climate change will become an even more pressing issue.

What many commentators are questioning is why Joyce was allowed to retire early. In fact, the board may have recommended he do so.

Regardless, this latest twist seems like an easy way out, as it saves him from fronting shareholders at the upcoming AGM, during which he would have had to respond to angry questions and account for the crisis Qantas is now in.

This will now be the board’s role and will include, among other things, fielding questions around the chief executive’s bonus (including the retirement package, which was going to be announced as part of the annual report presented to the AGM) and his performance. The ACCC allegations around selling tickets on cancelled flights, the pending court case related to COVID flight credits, the damage done to the brand and how to repair it will also be raised.

Did Qantas sway the government to block Qatar?

There will likely also be questions around Qantas’s role in lobbying the Australian government to reject Qatar’s application to essentially double its air traffic rights (three more daily flights to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne).

This would have helped restore capacity – and thus drive down airfares – on the Europe-to-Australia sector, which is still 30% below COVID-19 levels. should this be “pre-pandemic levels”?

That, however, may be a question that should be directed at the government. Yesterday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese even felt the need to declare he had not been lobbied by Qantas on the Qatar Airways decision.

When I read this, I wondered, was someone at Qantas not doing their job? As applies to any ASX listed company and airline in the world, they have an entire department that does nothing else but lobby politicians. That is how the game works and is entirely accepted.

As outlined in my analysis published on The Conversation last week, bilateral air service negotiations are a government affair akin to trade agreement negotiations.

The Australian government will, on a regular basis, negotiate with the governments of Qatar, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and others on such matters, and airlines at both ends of the negotiating table will lobby their respective governments.

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Based on what is in the best interests of the country, the government – in our case the Transport Minister Catherine King – then makes a determination. There is, therefore, opportunity for the government to revisit such decisions or come to a less restrictive determination in future rounds.

All of the above suggests there is huge potential for a fresh start and for building a better and more sustainable future for Australia’s largest airline, which will be beneficial to Australian travellers and the economy at large.

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Rico Merkert receives funding from the ARC and various industry partners. He loves to work with and for airlines including Qantas and Virgin Australia

– ref. Will it be greener pastures for Qantas as Alan Joyce takes off? – https://theconversation.com/will-it-be-greener-pastures-for-qantas-as-alan-joyce-takes-off-212848

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Surely Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe won’t move to a private bank after his term as governor ends next week.

After having chaired his last board meeting on Tuesday, there’s nothing to stop him, and – as shabby as it seems – he wouldn’t be the first.

There are three reasons why he shouldn’t join the board of or become chair of a private bank, all alluded to in the public service code of conduct.

One is concern that the former employee would reveal confidential Commonwealth information (which would be unlikely for someone as cluey as Lowe) or “provide other information that would give the new employer an advantage in its business dealings”, which would be more likely, even if unintentional.

Banks don’t seek out former Reserve Bank chiefs unless they think there’s something in it for them.

Another concern set out in the code of conduct is that the former employee would exploit their knowledge of the Commonwealth to lobby, or otherwise seek advantage for their new employer in dealing with the Commonwealth.

Banks such as Westpac, NAB, the ANZ and Macquarie Bank deal with the Reserve Bank all the time. It runs the payments system, it is responsible for the financial system, and it sets interest rates.

Every one of the four banks I just mentioned has employed either a former Reserve Bank Governor or Treasury Secretary.

Perceptions matter when a Governor moves on

Even where these high-profile hires don’t help the banks in their relations with the regulator, the public service code of conduct points to the “perception” that they will have a greater ability to influence regulators than other hires.

The third concern identified in the code of conduct – in my view the most important – has been labelled “ingratiation” by a public service specialist at the Australian National University, Richard Mulligan.

It’s the possibility that while still in the public service, the employee will use their position to go soft on an organisation (or type of organisation) they see as a potential future employer.

The Reserve Bank’s own code of conduct is silent on the question of taking up employment with the banks it regulates, although it does say that where there is a perception of conflict of interest, the employee has to discuss it with the relevant department head or governor.

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The government’s lobbying code of conduct in place since 2008 purports to ban heads of department from engaging in lobbying activities relating to any matter with which they have had official dealings for 12 months after they have left office.

But former governors needn’t lobby, and 12 months isn’t long to wait.

Philip Lowe’s predecessor, the man to whom he was deputy, Glenn Stevens, finished up as Reserve Bank Governor in September 2016 and joined the board of the Macquarie Bank and Macquarie Group in December 2017. He has been chair of the chair of Macquarie Bank and Macquarie Group since 2022.

Stevens’ predecessor as governor, Ian Macfarlane, finished as head of the Reserve Bank in September 2006 and joined the board of the ANZ bank in February 2007.

The governor he replaced, Bernie Fraser, finished at the Reserve Bank in September 1996 and joined the board of the industry funds that became Australian Super in the same year, becoming chair of the super-fund-owned ME Bank in 2000.

Ken Henry stepped down as head of the Australian Treasury (and a member of the Reserve Bank board) in April 2011 and in November that year joined the board of the National Australia Bank. In 2015 he was made its chair.

The man Henry replaced at the Treasury, Ted Evans, stepped down in April 2001 and joined the board of Westpac that year, becoming its chair in 2007.

I’ve dealt with each of these people while they were governors or treasury secretaries and I’ve never seen anything that made me doubt their integrity.

And yet in my view, none of them should have gone on to work for the type of organisations they used to regulate.

All of them were paid extraordinarily well. In 2021–22 Philip Lowe was on a package of $1.037 million including superannuation and a salary of $890,252.

None needed another high-paying job straight away, and (because of public service super) all had a generous income to look forward to in retirement.

I understand their need to continue to do interesting things, but I don’t think it’s too big a sacrifice to ask former regulators to do those things away from the types of organisations they had the privilege of regulating.

On retiring from the Reserve Bank in 1968, its first governor HC Coombs, chaired the Council for the Arts and the Council for Aboriginal Affairs. He made an ever-greater contribution to Australia without doing what the Japanese call amakudari, or “descending from heaven” to work for the organisations he once regulated.

A profile of the practice includes the admonition “don’t snicker”.

When Lowe took the governor’s job in 2016 I wrote a profile of him for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, speaking to former teachers and colleagues off the record. Repeatedly, unprompted, they mentioned his firm moral compass.

Lowe is about to turn 62. He has years of useful work ahead of him. I don’t expect him to descend from heaven to do it.

Peter Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What’s to stop Philip Lowe moving to a private bank after he leaves the RBA? It’s what his predecessors did – https://theconversation.com/whats-to-stop-philip-lowe-moving-to-a-private-bank-after-he-leaves-the-rba-its-what-his-predecessors-did-212780

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Robertson, ARC DECRA Fellow & Senior Lecturer in Construction Management, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne

The Olkola people from Queensland’s very remote Cape York Peninsula gained their land back through a native title claim in 2014. Since then, they have undertaken land management using traditional fire techniques, habitat protection and restoration and cultural tourism.

The Olkola are in the process of building a Cultural Knowledge Centre on their Country. The centre will support the Olkola people’s practices and showcase their culture to the world. During the Cultural Knowledge Centre design process, the Olkola identified the need to find, repatriate, document and share their cultural stories and archives.

In support of this vision, they formed the Traditional Owner-led project, Getting Back on Country. The project is led by the Olkola Aboriginal Corporation and the Olkola Rangers in collaboration with researchers at the University of Melbourne, including authors Hannah Robertson and Rochus Urban Hinkel.

In partnership with the researchers, the Olkola are using digital technologies including virtual reality and augmented reality to capture their cultural stories. These digitised stories, as well as Olkola artefacts, are to be kept and shared at the Cultural Knowledge Centre.

These digital technologies will also help to bring Country to Olkola Traditional Owners with dementia or disabilities who are unable to travel to Country.

Read more:
Rising seas and a great southern star: Aboriginal oral traditions stretch back more than 12,000 years

Nukakurra: a new way to visit Country

This is important work for Olkola people. Today we have a lot of people who can’t move, are in hospital or can’t get back on Country. We want to take Country back to them, so if they’re lying in a hospital bed, they’re lonely and nobody’s visiting, they’ve got something there that can take them back on Country and remind them where they came from. We believe this will be a healing medicine for people.

To realise this vision, we decided to create the Getting Back on Country Project. We began our collaboration by focusing on the Nukakurra Walking Trail as a pilot process for creating a digital cultural story.

Nukakurra is a cultural story place with a loop walk that passes several Olkola significant sites. Some of the sites in Nukakurra include the Blue Tongue Lizard dreaming site, an old Olkola campground and the Crocodile dreaming site. These dreaming sites are sacred to Olkola people because they are the creation places of these animal spirits which continue to walk across Olkola Country.

Author Melissa Iraheta and University of Melbourne researcher Mitch Ransome travelled to Olkola Country with the Olkola Rangers to document Nukakurra. Using 360-degree microphones and cameras, Lidar scanners (a laser used for determining distances between objects that can be used to create 3D landscapes), photogrammetry (which involves collecting overlapping images to build 2D or 3D models) and drones, they spent a week documenting the key sites.

Robertson and Uncle Mike Ross then travelled to Olkola Country with Olkola Elder Uncle Jack Lowdown and other senior elders to document the cultural story audio for Nukakurra in both English and Olkol using a 360-degree microphone.

This process highlighted the power of yarning and the connections between the sites of significance. Uncle Mike created a new story of a grandfather and grandmother walking the Country and passing the sites with their grandchildren and sharing their knowledge as they did – just as it would have happened in the old world prior to colonisation.

The process also highlighted the limitations of the technologies in the remote context, with cameras overheating and the 360-degree microphone struggling to capture audio while walking. Now we have these stories, the final stitching of the Nukakurra cultural story place experience is being developed as a 360-degree film experience.

Read more:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people must be at the centre, not the margins, of LGBTQIA+ plans and policies

The importance of preserving story

The pilot digital experiences for the Nukakurra Olkola cultural story place are still in development. In May, three generations of Olkola people shared their experiences of working with the University of Melbourne on the Getting Back on Country and Olkola Cultural Knowledge Centre projects.

During this yarn, Olkola woman and project manager for the Olkola Aboriginal Corporation, Katherine Samuel, reflected on the data collection process:

[Uncle Mike] saying welcome [to Nukakurra] in English and Uncle Jack saying it in [Olkol] language and Mitch holding the 3D camera and collecting all that data, it was so much. And when they came up March this year, Grandad Mike put on the VR goggles, wow it was so cool. To be able to sit in the office and feel like you were there. It was really cool; we were able to collect data with multiple technologies.

There are hopes to continue to expand the collaboration with the Olkola in a larger project. We aim to encompass multiple cultural story sites and find and repatriate Olkola cultural archives. It is our hope this can provide a process for other traditional owner groups to explore and preserve their respective stories on their own Country.

We wish to acknowledge the contributions of all of the Olkola people involved in this project. In particular, we would like to acknowledge Olkola woman Katherine Samuel of the Olkola Aboriginal Corporation, Olkola elder Uncle Jack Lowdown and Mitch Ransome from the University of Melbourne for their contributions.

Hannah Robertson receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. She is affiliated with the University of Melbourne and Monash University. The Getting Back On Country project is funded with internal seed funding through the Melbourne Social Equity Institute, Chancellery and a Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning Seed Grant. The Cultural Knowledge Centre Project receives construction funding from the Queensland Government through the Growing Indigenous Tourism Queensland Fund and the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation’s Our Country, Our Future’ fund.

Melissa Iraheta is affiliated with the University of Melbourne, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning.

Rochus Hinkel has received funding for the Getting Back On Country project, from the Melbourne Social Equity Institute, Chancellery and from the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning.

Deb Symonds and Uncle Mike Ross do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Virtual reality is helping Olkola Traditional Owners get back on Country – https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-is-helping-olkola-traditional-owners-get-back-on-country-211501

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Teske, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

This weekend, the world’s major economies will convene in Delhi for the G20 summit. On the table will be the common goal of limiting global temperature rise as climate chaos becomes ever more evident.

When we talk about limiting climate change, we’re really talking about the global carbon budget set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Basically, we have a two-thirds chance of holding global heating to 1.5℃ if we keep future emissions under 400 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. At current emission rates, we’ve got just under five years left before we blow through that limit.

As our new research shows, getting to net zero isn’t going to be the same in each country. There are commonalities – halting new fossil fuel projects and funding renewables, storage and energy efficiency. But there will be significant differences in how manufacturing giants like China zero out emissions compared to India or Australia.

And then there’s the question of fairness. Some countries have emitted vastly more than others. If we divide up the remaining carbon budget while taking historic emissions into account, we find countries like America, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia have already gone past their fair carbon budgets.

Meanwhile, countries which have industrialised later like Mexico, China, Argentina, Turkey, India and Indonesia are sitting below their fair carbon budgets.

What’s new about this?

The G20 account for 80% of the world’s emissions. If each of these countries ended their reliance on fossil fuels and other emissions sources, we’d be most of the way to tackling the climate crisis.

We took into account how much each country has emitted historically, from industrialisation to 2019, and population size. Then we devised a per capita carbon index, which gives developing countries with little historic responsibility for climate change a fair distribution of carbon from 2020 to 2050. We did this to show how every country can make this energy transition in a timeframe realistic to their circumstances.

India: minimal historic impact but rising fast

The world’s most populous country has historically been a very low emitter, producing just 25% of China’s emissions from 1750–2019. But in recent decades, it has begun to emit more and its future emissions might rise substantially.

India has relied heavily on coal power, but its renewable sector is growing exceptionally fast. It’s now the fourth largest market for solar, biomass and wind power

Steelmaking is rapidly growing. If this industry relies on old coal technology, it will add to emissions and eat away at the global carbon budget. New build steel plants should turn to hydrogen or other green steelmaking techniques.

Power sector: not yet on track but positive trend

Industry: not on track.

Read more:
Africa has vast gas reserves – here’s how to stop them adding to climate change

China: giant of emissions, manufacturing – and renewables

China produces over 30% of the world’s emissions with 18% of its population, making it the world’s biggest.

The North Asian nation’s cement, steel, chemical and aluminium industries rely heavily on coal, producing 60% of the global energy-related emissions from each of these sectors – vastly more than America’s 10%.

Cleaning up its enormous industrial sector through green steelmaking and other new techniques will be actually be harder than getting off coal power.

On the positive side, China has emerged as the world’s leading nation in solar and wind energy deployment and manufacturing. It’s surging forward on electric cars and long-distance rail.

Power sector: decarbonising slowly, not yet on track

Industrial sector: well off track

America: gas, inefficient cars and a clean energy boom

The United States is the world’s largest single emitter of carbon emissions in the power sector, both historically as well as per capita.

Fossil gas plays a major role for power and heat generation, while America’s cars and trucks are the most inefficient in the world. The nation has just 4% of global population but its vehicles emit almost 25% of the world’s emissions from road transport.

The nation’s building sector accounts for 15% of all global emissions from buildings, due to large, inefficiently built houses and heating systems.

These sectors – power, transport and buildings – still need urgent attention. But, thankfully, America’s much-vaunted Inflation Reduction Act has triggered an enormous investment boom in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Power sector: well on track to be largely decarbonised by 2040

Transport and building sectors: not yet on track

Australia: rich in renewables – and gas and coal

Australia is one of the top five per capita emitters in the G20, both historically and today. Our relatively small population means we’re not one of the largest overall emitters.

Huge coal and gas reserves mean Australia has long profited from fossil fuel income. We’re the second largest coal exporter and one of the top liquefied natural gas exporters.

On the upside, Australia has some of the world’s best and largest solar and wind resources. We could play a leading role in the transition towards green steel and green hydrogen. At the rate things are going, we could decarbonise domestic energy supply in just over a decade.

Power sector: broadly on track

Transport sector: not yet on track

Fair is possible – and necessary

This weekend’s G20 summit gives an opportunity to build political momentum and formulate plans for concrete action among high-emitting countries.

An agreement to fairly split up the remaining carbon budget is unlikely, however, given debate over whether cutting carbon will damage economic development in developing countries at the recent G20 meeting of foreign ministers.

It might be hard. But it is possible. Many rich countries have already broken the link between GDP growth and energy demand. Developing countries can decarbonise while continuing to grow.

Read more:
COP27 roundup: how the world can stick to its carbon budget fairly

Sven Teske receives funding fromthe European Climate Foundation, 23 Rue de la Science, 1040 Brussels, Belgium (grant number 2101-61369).

– ref. Every country can make a difference – but carbon reductions need to be realistic and fair – https://theconversation.com/every-country-can-make-a-difference-but-carbon-reductions-need-to-be-realistic-and-fair-212375

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hazel Keedle, Senior Lecturer of Midwifery, Western Sydney University

Many women want a different kind of pregnancy and birth the next time around. Many want to see the same one or two midwives throughout, and want to choose where they give birth. And when the time comes, they want a vaginal birth, with less intervention.

This is what thousands of Australian women told us when we asked if they would do anything differently if they had another baby.

We publish our findings today in British Medical Journal Open.

Read more:
Curious Kids: why do babies cry when they come out of their mum?

What we did

In 2021, we undertook Australia’s largest national study of birth experiences. As part of that, we asked women, “Would you do anything different if you were to have another baby?”

A total of 6,101 women left comments. More than 85% of comments were from women who said they’d do things differently the next time around.

Several themes emerged.

Read more:
Monday’s medical myth: women forget the pain of childbirth

‘Next time I’ll be ready’

The largest group of comments (39.2%) were from women who wanted to avoid a repeat of their previous pregnancy and birth experience. They wanted to better advocate for themselves, get more informed about their choices, and avoid certain birth interventions.

For example, there were more than 500 comments from women who would try to avoid having their next labour started manually, known as an induction of labour.

A woman from Western Australia, who ended up having a caesarean, said:

I would 100% opt for no induction. I believe it’s the reason that led me to a c-section.

Australia has a high rate of induction, especially for women having their first babies (41% induced labour rate for women having their first baby). Women feel they are inadequately informed about the process of induction and not given a choice or alternative options.

We have also shown an induction of labour in Australia can lead to further medical interventions . High rates of medical intervention, such as induction, can lead to poorer maternal and neonatal outcomes when used excessively.

Read more:
Too many healthy women are having their labour induced for no identified medical reason, our study shows

‘I want a specific birth experience’

This was the second largest category (28.5% of comments). Here, most women said they wanted their next birth to be a vaginal birth (1,735 comments) and some would opt for a caesarean (438 comments).

Of the women wanting a vaginal birth, 1,021 comments related to wanting the next birth at home.

Read more:
Explainer: what are women’s options for giving birth?

‘I want a specific model of care’

Women also said they wanted to be better prepared by getting better support. This ranged from a more supportive partner, hiring a doula and choosing their care provider.

Some 17.8% of all comments, the next-largest group, identified a specific model of maternity care. Women wanted to access a more supportive model that would respect their choices and wishes.

Most women in this group wanted “midwifery continuity of care”. This is where women are cared for by one or two midwives throughout their pregnancy, labour and birth, and into the post-birth period.

A woman from Victoria, who told us she wanted continuity of care next time around, said:

It is very important to me that next time I have a care provider who I fully trust, who has a good understanding of my birth preferences and who I know will be a strong advocate for me and who will encourage, empower, support and believe in me and my ability to birth my baby.

Midwifery continuity of care is available now in many public hospitals and is commonly called midwifery group practice or caseload midwifery. Some women access this type of care through private midwives. These charge a fee (there are some Medicare rebates) and can support women to have births at home.

But access to midwifery continuity of care is still limited and booked out early, meaning many women miss out, especially if they live in regional or remote regions.

Read more:
Call the Midwife: playing catch up with Australia’s maternity care

‘I want better access’

This group of comments (2.9%) included ones from women in regional and remote parts of Australia.

They said they wished they had access to more local maternity services and equitable access to models that offer continuity of care and homebirth, such as private midwives.

A woman from a remote town in New South Wales said:

If I ever fell pregnant again. I would move to a bigger town. Obstetric care in the bush is very much lacking. Rural women like myself are lucky to even be alive after our experiences.

With many maternity units in rural and remote areas shutting down, women are forced to travel big distances and have fewer maternity care options than women who give birth in cities.

‘I don’t want to change anything’

Some 10.2% of comments were from women who didn’t want to change anything the next time around.

Of these, just under half (47%) were from women who received midwifery continuity of care.

This is significant as midwifery continuity of care only represent 15% of maternity models in Australia.

Why are birth experiences important?

We’ve shown that many women who reflect on their experience of pregnancy and birth wish they had made different decisions and wish they had a more positive experience to look back on.

A negative birth experience can lead to birth trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Some of this may be unavoidable, such as when emergency situations arise during the labour. But trauma can also be related to the way women are respected, informed and cared for.

Read more:
So your birth didn’t go according to plan? Don’t blame yourself

What happens next?

What women are asking for is humanised, evidence-based maternity care. So it’s time to act if we are to avoid the type of experiences highlighted during the current NSW Select Committee on Birth Trauma.

With evidence from more than 4,000 submissions, this reminds us we often fail women during one of the most vulnerable, yet potentially transforming experiences in their life. We hope women’s voices are finally heard.

Read more:
1 in 10 women report disrespectful or abusive care in childbirth

Hazel Keedle is affiliated with the Australian College of Midwives.

Daniella Susic is affiliated with UNSW Sydney, RANZCOG and MothersBabies. Funding for research has been received via RANZCOG.

Hannah Dahlen receives funding from NHMRC, ARC and MRFF. She is affiliated with the Australian College of Midwives

– ref. More than 6,000 women told us what they wanted for their next pregnancy and birth. Here’s what they said – https://theconversation.com/more-than-6-000-women-told-us-what-they-wanted-for-their-next-pregnancy-and-birth-heres-what-they-said-211435